Author | Kelly D. Mitchell, DVM, DVSc., DACVIM

Learn more on heartworm in feline patients, plus what has been updated in the American Heartworm Society guidelines on this episode of The Vet Blast Podcast, presented by dvm360.

Enteral feeding tubes are an essential tool in the provision of nutritional support to animals unable or unwilling to consume sufficient calories on their own. Nutritional support should be considered for any animal that has been anorexic or has had inadequate voluntary caloric intake for ? 3 days, has lost ? 10% of their body weight or has other signs of malnutrition (e.g. poor hair coat, muscle wasting, poor wound healing, hypoalbuminemia, lymphopenia).

The gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped organ located in the cranial abdomen between the right medial and quadrate liver lobes. Bile is synthesized by hepatocytes and collects within canaliculi and is sequentially drained from into bile ductules, interlobular, lobar and hepatic ducts.

Rational pharmacological management of canine and feline liver diseases is built around removal of the inciting cause, specific therapy (e.g. anti-inflammatory, antifibrotic or anticopper agents) and provision of general liver support. Generally speaking, treatment recommendations are based upon the suspected pathophysiology of the disease or extrapolated from the human medical literature and are not based on veterinary clinical trials.