Surveillance of feline inherited diseases in Italy

A national database and a local surveillance service are powerful instruments for monitoring the animal inherited diseases in a Country. The increased use of genetic tests and the closer attention on everything is “genetic”, makes it important a systematic and consistent collection of phenotypes and biological samples both for the service/counselling to the breeders/owners/veterinarians and for the research. In the last decade a positive interaction between Scientists (University of Milan and Perugia), a service Lab (Vetogene), the Italian Feline Biobank, many veterinary specialists (the Osservatorio Italiano HCM Felina) and the breeder associations and fancy clubs, was successfully established (1). Blood and DNA samples of more than 4200 cats were collected in the Biobank, the great majority tested for the most important genetic diseases or for genetic profiling. Out of these cats, 1272 were enrolled in the Osservatorio: 737 Maine Coons, 126 Norwegian Forest cats, 119 Siberians, 86 Ragdolls, 58 Sphynxes, 38 BritishSHs, 38 Birmans, 16 Bengals, 34 random bred cats and, with less than 10 cats each breed, Persians, ExoticSHs, Turkish vans, Scottish Folds, Chartreuxes, Devon Rexes, AmericaSHs. Their detailed clinical data were recorded. In the 7 most represented breeds, HCM (grouping mild, moderate and severe cases) showed an average % of clinical positiveness of 5.14% (st.dev 1.76) ranging from 2.6% in the BritishSHs to 7.89 in the Birmans. Affected random bred, Bengal and Persian cats were also recorded. More data are provided on the diseases epidemiology, a prospection on the follow-up of the enrolled animals and on the next step aimed to connect this local model to the European and world network. 1) Longeri et al. (2013) J Vet Intern Med; 27(2):275-85.