2015 ACVIM Forum Research Abstract Program

Thirty-eight cats were studied. Pleural effusion was determined to be of cardiac origin in 21 cats and non-cardiac origin in 17 cats. No significant differences in weight (P = 0.742), age (P = 0.862), heart rate (P = 0.268) or respiratory rate (P = 0.170) were detected between groups. Plasma (1500 Plasma ( [790-1500 vs 58 [31-174.5] , P < 0.001) and pleural fluid (1500 vs 108 [56-324.5], P < 0.001) NT-proBNP (BNP-quant) , left atrial to aortic root ratio (LA/Ao) (2.59 [2.25-2.82] vs 1.3 [1.2-1.4], P < 0.001) and the proportions of male cats (80% vs 35%, P = 0.008) and cats with murmurs (71% vs 29%, P = 0.021) and gallop rhythms (62% vs 6%, P = 0.001) were higher in the cardiac vs non-cardiac group. A cut-off of 452 pmol/L for plasma BNP-quant yielded a sensitivity of 90.5% (95% CI 71.1-97.4%) and a specificity of 88.2% (95% CI 65.6-96.7%, AUC=0.96) %) with a positive likelihood ratio of 7.29 (95% CI 2.08-28.48) and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.11 (95% CI 0.03-0.41). A cut-off of 537 pmol/L for pleural fluid BNP-quant yielded a sensitivity of 81.0% (95% CI 60.0-92.3) and a specificity of 88.2% (95%CI 65.6-96.7%, AUC=0.96) with a positive likelihood ratio of 6.88 (95% CI 1. 84-25.71 ) and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.22 (95% CI 0.09-0.53).