Production of Aortic Occlusion resembling Acute Aortic Embolism Syndrome in Cats

Abstract

A SYNDROME of acute aortic embolism occurring in cats resembles the condition found in man. An embolus, usually fragmented from an intracardiac thrombus, lodges at the iliac bifurcation, disrupting blood supply to the rear limbs. The symptoms include: paraplegia, loss of femoral pulse, cold rear extremities, initial muscular tenseness of the rear limbs followed by atrophy, and pain. In an effort to reproduce the signs of aortic embolism or ‘saddle embolus’, the posterior aortas of thirteen cats were occluded by various methods. The work here suggests that the blood-clot occluding the aorta is responsible for the hind-limb paralysis, accomplishing this by some means other than mechanical circulatory blockage.