LONG BONE FRACTURES IN CATS: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

Abstract

The aim of this study was to retrospectively assess a population of cats with long-bone
fractures over a six year period. Data about cat signalment (breed, sex, age, body weight);
domiciled or not; cause of injury; time of occurrence; injured limbs and fractured bones
(humerus, radius/ulna, femur, tibia/fibula); soft-tissue damage (closed, open); and fracture
location (proximal, middle or distal one-third), direction of the fracture line in relation to the
bone's longitudinal axis (transverse, oblique, spiral) and extent of damage (incomplete,
complete, multi-fragmentary) were evaluated. To compare the variable proportions was used
G-test assumed that the proportions in each category were equal. The differences were
considered significant at p<0.05. A total of 141 cats were evaluated, 90.07% were crossbreed,
6.38% Siamese, and 3.55% Persian. The body weight was greater than or equal to 2.0 kg in
68.08% of the cases. The femur was the most affected bone (50.84%), followed by the
tibia/fibula (29.05%), and radius/ulna (10.61%) and humerus (9.50%). The cats had from six
to 180 months of age, being 58.16% up to 12-month-old. Motor vehicle accidents accounted
for 42.55% of the causes, followed by dog bites (12.76 %), falls (4.25%), and accidents in
general. The closed fractures (85.47%) were more frequent than open fractures (11.12%). In
conclusion, this population was constituted mainly of domiciled crossbred cats, under 12
months of age, weighing more than or equal to 2.kg, that have been more frequently affected
by complete and closed fractures of the femur due to traffic-related accident.