{"id":930,"date":"2012-03-23T10:34:31","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T00:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=930"},"modified":"2012-03-28T10:37:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T00:37:19","slug":"uk-veterinarians-surprised-by-gigantic-fur-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=930","title":{"rendered":"UK Veterinarians surprised by gigantic fur ball"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>Trichobezoars are known to cause gastrointestinal obstructions in cats, but as Cromwell veterinarian David Fennell can attest, not all are created equally.\r\n\r\nOn January 5, Fennell and colleagues at Cromwell Vet Group in the UK removed a monster fur ball weighing 214 grams and measuring 12cm in diameter from a cat.\r\n\r\nIt may well be the biggest fur ball recorded.\r\n\r\nThe patient, an eight-and-a-half-year-old domestic long haired cat named Gemma, presented with a five day history of lethargy, inappetence and not being herself.\r\n\r\nOn physical examination veterinarians palpated an enormous mass \u2013 larger than two handfuls \u2013 in her cranial abdomen.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe initially suspected a tumour,\u201d Fennell said. \u201cX-rays and ultrasound confirmed a mass but nothing diagnostic.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have been a vet for 40 years and it is the largest fur ball I have ever seen,\u201d Fennell said. \u201cNone of the 20 vets in our practice had ever seen anything on this scale before.\u201d\r\n\r\nCats may be more prone to retaining fur in the stomach following ingestion due to a lack of interdigestive migrating myoelectric complexes (IMMCs) which clear non-digestible matter from the gastrointestinal tract in other species (Barrs et al<\/em>, 1999). Normally, IMMC begin in the stomach and result in powerful peristaltic waves which continue along the GIT, shifting matter into the colon. Whether Gemma is more IMMC deficient than the average moggy is not known. The classic clinical signs of trichobezoars are vomiting and retching. Gemma displayed neither.\r\n\r\nFortunately for Gemma, the owners elected to proceed with exploratory laparotomy \u2013 expecting confirmation of a diagnosis of cancer.\r\n\r\nInstead, surgeons removed the massive fur ball \u2013 weighing as much as two iPhones \u2013 from Gemma\u2019s stomach via gastrotomy. When laid out on the table the fur ball formed a perfect cast of the interior of the stomach.\r\n\r\nAmazingly, Gemma\u2019s owners reported that she had not had a history of attempting to expel fur balls as most normal cats would. But she did have some fleas and was over-grooming in an effort to remove them.\r\n\r\n\u201cI suspect the hair ball built up fairly rapidly due excessive moulting and grooming although I am surprised that she hadn\u2019t vomited small hair balls previously.\u201d\r\n\r\nHowever it had occurred, the foreign body was definitely better out and in. Gemma\u2019s health improved immediately and she was able to eat the day after surgery.\r\n\r\nGemma\u2019s plight may just spare more moggies from the same predicament. The practice thought that Gemma\u2019s story might be of local interest so contacted the local paper which published photos and the story. Within 24 hours it was picked up by the international press. As a result the story of Gemma\u2019s fur ball has gone global – along with a plea by the Cromwell Vets for owners to brush their cat regularly. Her tale is a reminder that trichobezoars should be included on differentials for a cranial abdominal mass effect \u2013 and that surgeon\u2019s should always bring a camera to work.\r\n\r\nAs for world records, there are currently none recorded on the Guinness World Records database for feline fur-balls.\r\n\r\nReference<\/strong>\r\n\r\nBarrs VR, Beatty JA, Tisdall PL, Hunt GB, Gunew M, Nicholl RG, Malik R (2003) Intestinal obstruction by trichobezoars in five cats. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery<\/em> 1(4):199-207.\r\n\r\nANNE FAWCETT<\/strong>\r\n\r\nPictures Geoff Robinson","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trichobezoars are known to cause gastrointestinal obstructions in cats, but as Cromwell veterinarian David Fennell can attest, not all are created equally. On January 5, Fennell and colleagues at Cromwell Vet Group in the UK removed a monster fur ball weighing 214 grams and measuring 12cm in diameter from a cat. It may well be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":400,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":400,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Trichobezoars are known to cause gastrointestinal obstructions in cats, but as Cromwell veterinarian David Fennell can attest, not all are created equally. On January 5, Fennell and colleagues at Cromwell Vet Group in the UK removed a monster fur ball weighing 214 grams and measuring 12cm in diameter from a cat. It may well be the biggest fur ball recorded...","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":932,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}