Cat CCL rupture - conservative approach or surgical repair?

Re: Cat CCL rupture - conservative approach or surgical repair?

nickyc — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 09:01:39 GMT

I would personnelly go for conservative management.. I don't know much about cats put my 19kg dog did sustain partial cruciate tear. I went with hydrotherapy, physiotherapy and had a custom knee brace made for her. It took 6 months of treatment, but 2 years on she is sound on her left hind, with no subsequent arthritis in the joint:-) compared to my other dog who had surgical repair of both stifles and now has a terrible gait... Definately hydrotherapy and physiotherapy make a huge difference and really would consider this for your cat if you are going for conservative management, and it really does speed things along and helps to improve and strengthen the muscles around the knee which in turn will help to support the knee joint, and cats do really tolerate the treatment well as long as you take things slowly and quietly..

Re: Cat CCL rupture - conservative approach or surgical repair?

Kimbo — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 21:43:22 GMT

Thanks Laura. Between day 7 & 14 I've seen a good improvement and now feeling a lot happier about conservative management. Her revisit at 14 days confirmed this. Glad we were patient!

Re: Cat CCL rupture - conservative approach or surgical repair?

Laura James — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 07:04:54 GMT

As a general rule, anything with a CCL rupture under 15kgs should heal with conservative treatment. In 5 years of doing lots of orthopaedics, I've never seen a cats CCL surgically repaired. Especially as an 11 year old cat, it is fairly major surgery and chances are there are slight arthritic changes already within the joint and going in there isn't going to help matters. Personally, if he were mine and doing well on Meloxicam then I wouldn't do surgery, especially as Cartrophen could be used as a boost

Hope this helps