Diagnosis and treatment of Bartonella henselae
infection in cats
Diagnosis of B. henselae infection in cats:
serologic testing (IFA; combined ELISA/immunoblot - In the
later case, ELISA is used for initial screening and immunoblot
is used to distinguish true from false positives.)
Importantly, a (-) serologic test in a cat is highly predictive
of that cat not being bacteremic. Therefore, it is recommended
that immunocompromised human patients only acquire sero (-) adult
cats. Conversely, cats may remain seropositive beyond the time
of active bacteremia.
blood culture
PCR
Treatment in cats?
In one report, antibiotics (erythromycin or tetracycline)
reduced the level of bacteremia following experimental infection
of cats, but the duration of bacteremia was not affected. (Regnery
et al., 1996)
In a second report (Greene et al., 1996), doxycycline,
amoxicillin, enrofloxacin and clavamox were all variably effective
in reducing the duration of bacteremia, but there were no simultaneous
untreated controls in this study.
Overall, based upon the data to date, antibiotic therapy
is unlikely to immediately eliminate the organism from infected
cats and the risk of transmission to humans. It will be interesting,
however, to determine whether azithromycin will be a useful drug
to terminate bacteremia in cats in addition to its ability to
reduce the symptoms of CSD in people.
