The Cardiovascular (Heart and Circulatory) System of Cats

 

For every beat our heart takes, a typical cat’s heart beats three times. That’s a lot of hard work! This little muscular organ works 24/7 to take the oxygen rich blood and send it all around the body, and then send the oxygen depleted blood back through the lung fields to again recharge. The circulation cycle then starts all over again.

The heart and the blood vessels including arteries, capillaries, and veins are finely tuned to control the amount of blood circulating at any one time. Also closely controlled are the blood plasma contents including the sugar, hormones and salts, the acidity, the concentration, and blood pressure. Considering all of the delicate nerve signals, fine coordination of muscle contractions, and hormonal messages needed to keep everything working just right, there are surprisingly few problems!

Cats are very good at hiding illness. This can be a challenge when it comes time to diagnose heart conditions in cats. Sometimes, a heart problem may go unnoticed at home until it is in the advanced stages, or sudden death can occur.

This is why it is very important to take your cat in for regular professional health examinations. Sometimes even with stethoscope auscultation, a cat with heart disease will seem normal, but sometimes a new heart murmur is picked up during the physical examination, and that can tip us off to an emerging problem. Echocardiograms (especially 2-D) and X-ray imaging, ECG, heartworm tests, blood counts / blood chemistry and hormone tests can help us identify the specific cause of the heart or circulation problem.

Cats can develop many types of heart and circulatory problems, but malformations at birth (congenital) are less common in cats than in dogs. In young kittens, sometimes we hear murmurs which are benign (or harmless). This is due to a normal heart producing a bit of turbulence because it is beating with good strength and the body wall is thin, so we hear the swooshing noises more easily than in the more mature cat.

 

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