Prospective Hematologic and Clinicopathologic Study of Asymptomatic Cats With Naturally Acquired Feline Immunodeficiency Virus Infection

摘要

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a horizontally transmitted retrovims of cats which serves as an excellent animal model for the similar immunodeficiency virus of humans (HIV), In experimental inoculation studies, the pathologic characteristics of the disease have been studied as the cats experience acute infection, a prolonged asymptomatic phase, and eventual immunologic deficits, but the clinical AIDS-like stage of chronic FIV infection has not yet been fully reproduced. To correlate the hematologic and clinicopathologic characteristics of disease in cats with naturally acquired FIV infections with the progression of viral infection and the development of clinical disease, 5 asymptomatic chronically FIV-infected cats were prospectively evaluated for a median of 66 months.