pradofloxacin and Anemia

Topics: Agglutination; Anemia; Animals; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Biopsy, Fine-Needle; Cat Diseases; Cats; Coombs Test; Erythrocytes; Female; Fluoroquinolones; Gene Rearrangement; Macrophages; Mycoplasma; Mycoplasma Infections; Phagocytosis; Receptors, Antigen, B-Cell; Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell; Spleen

To evaluate the efficacy of the fluoroquinolone pradofloxacin in the treatment of cats experimentally infected with Mycoplasma hemofelis.. 23 young adult specific-pathogen-free cats.. Cats were inoculated with M hemofelis from a chronically infected donor and assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups: a doxycycline group, a low-dose-pradofloxacin group, a high-dose-pradofloxacin group, and an untreated control group. Treatment was initiated for 14 days when M hemofelis infection was detected via PCR assay and clinical signs of hemoplasmosis were present. Cats that had negative PCR assay results after treatment were administered a glucocorticoid and monitored via PCR assay for an additional 4 weeks.. All cats yielded positive results for M hemofelis via conventional PCR and quantitative PCR assays and developed anemia. The low-dose-pradofloxacin group had significantly lower M hemofelis copy numbers than the doxycycline group. Six cats treated with pradofloxacin yielded negative results during treatment. Of those cats, 4 yielded negative conventional PCR assay results and all yielded negative quantitative PCR assay results for M hemofelis 1 month after administration of high-dose glucocorticoids.. Pradofloxacin had anti-M hemofelis effects similar to those of doxycycline. In addition, pradofloxacin may be more effective at long-term M hemofelis organism clearance than doxycycline.

Topics: Anemia; Animals; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Blood Cell Count; Cat Diseases; Cats; DNA, Bacterial; Doxycycline; Female; Fluoroquinolones; Hematocrit; Male; Mycoplasma; Mycoplasma Infections; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Random Allocation; Specific Pathogen-Free Organisms