Clinical findings and treatment of disseminated ‘Mycobacterium avium subspecies hominissuis’ infection in a domestic cat

KANEGI, Ryoji; YASUGI, Mayo; NABETANI, Tomoyo; TANAKA, Toshiyuki; WADA, Yusuke; HIRAI, Kotaro; SUGIURA, Kikuya; HATOYA, Shingo

In human medicine, combination antibiotics are administered for 12-24 months or until NTM culture results are negative. However, there is no convincing scientific evidence [4, 9, 16, 28] . In domestic cats, it was recommended that treatment of feline leprosy syndrome, which was caused by Mycobacterium species, should ideally be continued for a further 3 months after lesions have regressed in order to reduce the risk of recurrence [23] . However, the optimal length of drug therapy for MAH has not yet been established. Here, we administered combination antibiotics for 6 months until NTM culture yielded negative results, and no symptoms or abnormal findings were detected in X-Ray or ultrasound images. Further studies might be needed to identify the optimal treatment duration of MAH infection.