Abstract
<jats:p>Modern veterinary medicine sets high standards for diagnosing various pathologies in animals. Today, such specialised areas of veterinary medicine as neurosurgery, oncology, orthopaedics, traumatology, cardiology, etc. are developing rapidly. Clinical research on animals in these areas requires the use of the most reliable methodological approaches, which include visual diagnostic methods. [4, 62–70, 84, 104]. Modern diagnostic capabilities are constantly expanding, and scientific advances have significantly influenced our understanding of heart pathologies in domestic cats. The use of already known examination methods – electrocardiography and radiography – as well as the introduction of the latest non-invasive methods of examining the heart of animals, such as echocardiography, enable veterinarians to accurately detect abnormalities in the anatomical structure of the heart and assess its functional disorders. The main heart pathologies in domestic cats are cardiomyopathies, the diagnosis and treatment of which is one of the most pressing issues in small animal veterinary medicine. [8, 11–16, 56, 63, 106]. Cardiomyopathies in domestic cats are diseases of significant clinical importance because they are asymptomatic. The most common forms of cardiomyopathy in domestic cats are hypertrophic, restrictive and dilated. It is the asymptomatic course of cardiomyopathy in domestic cats that complicates the diagnosis of these diseases and distinguishes them from similar diseases in other animal species. Signs of cardiomyopathy can appear quite unexpectedly, such as shortness of breath and the development of pulmonary oedema, pain in the pelvic limbs, and the development of aortic thromboembolism. Such pathological conditions often lead to the death of cats, which, in some cases, has psychological, social and economic consequences for the owners of these animals. Currently, cardiomyopathy in domestic cats is a poorly studied pathology in Ukraine. The most pressing issues today are the establishment of aetiological factors, diagnosis and treatment of cats with various types of cardiomyopathy.</jats:p>