ASVCP guidelines: quality assurance for portable blood glucose meter (glucometer) use in veterinary medicine.

Portable blood glucose meters (PBGM, glucometers) are a convenient, cost effective, and quick means to assess patient blood glucose concentration. The number of commercially available PBGM is constantly increasing, making it challenging to determine whether certain glucometers may have benefits over others for veterinary testing. The challenge in selection of an appropriate glucometer from a quality perspective is compounded by the variety of analytic methods used to quantify glucose concentrations and disparate statistical analysis in many published studies. These guidelines were developed as part of the ASVCP QALS committee response to establish recommendations to improve the quality of testing using point-of-care testing (POCT) handheld and benchtop devices in veterinary medicine. They are intended for clinical pathologists and laboratory professionals to provide them with background knowledge and specific recommendations for quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC), and to serve as a resource to assist the provision of advice to veterinarians and technicians to improve the quality of results obtained when using PBGM. These guidelines are not intended to be all-inclusive; rather they provide a minimum standard for management of PBGM in the veterinary setting.

Mastocytaemia in cats: prevalence, detection and quantification methods, haematological associations and potential implications in 30 cats with mast cell tumours.

The significance of mastocytaemia in cats is different from that in dogs because it appears exclusively associated with mast cell neoplasia. The prevalence of mastocytaemia was 0.05% of all feline submissions to a private laboratory and 43% in cats with mast cell neoplasia. None of 30 healthy cats had mastocytaemia. There was no sex bias or significant age difference between mastocytaemic and non-mastocytaemic cats with mast cell tumours (MCT). Buffy coat (BC) examination was the best screening method for detection of mastocytaemia but direct blood film examination was more accurate for quantifying degree of mastocytaemia. BC examination should be performed in all cases of suspected/known mast cell neoplasia as mastocytaemia was missed on nearly 30% of occasions when direct film examination only was used. Mastocytaemia was associated with decreased haematocrit (HCT) but not with other haematological parameters. Mastocytaemic cats can survive significant lengths of time (up to 27 months) even when splenectomy is not performed.

Hemolysis, myopathy, and cardiac disease associated with hereditary phosphofructokinase deficiency in two Whippets.

Two male castrated Whippet littermates were presented at 1 year of age for pallor, tachycardia, systolic heart murmur, dark yellow to orange feces, intermittent lethargy, pigmenturia, and muscle shivering or cramping after exercise. Persistent macrocytic hypochromic anemia with marked reticulocytosis and metarubricytosis was found when CBC results were compared with reference values for Whippets. Increased serum creatine kinase activity and hyperkalemia also were sometimes present over the 4-year period of evaluation. Progressively increasing serum concentrations of N-terminal prohormone brain natriuretic peptide suggested cardiac disease. Erythrocytes from the whippets were less osmotically fragile but more alkaline fragile than those from control dogs. Erythrocyte phosphofructokinase (PFK) activities and 2,3-diphosphoglycerate concentrations were decreased. Restriction enzyme-based DNA test screening and DNA sequencing revealed the same mutation in the muscle-PFK gene of the Whippets as seen in English Springer Spaniel dogs with PFK deficiency. This is the first report of PFK deficiency in Whippet dogs. In addition to causing hemolysis and exertional myopathy, heart disease may be a prominent clinical component of PFK deficiency in this breed and has not been previously recognized in PFK-deficient English Springer Spaniels.