RE: Short tibias in a cat?

Beats — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:16:48 GMT

Way beyond my expertise, but you can sign up to VIN, post the pictures, then cancel within the month and it won't cost you anything, and you'll probably get an opinion of someone who has dealt with something similar within a week.

I would speculate that given the symmetry this is genetic in origin. A brief internet search (My feline ortho text is in work) revealed very little, but yours don't look as bad as the ones in this article!:

https://www.agriculturejournals.cz/publicFiles/02040.pdf

I suspect you are working from first principles here in your case. Below are my rambling, amateur, thoughts - these are in no way intended to be taken as advice!

1) Cats can live fulfilling lives with surprising deformities (I was on holiday the other week where there was a colony of cats around the guest house and one adult cat was perfectly happy in spite of missing one back leg entirely and the other being, shall we say, not functional). While the only Skookum I ever encountered did not live long, I am led to believe that as distasteful as the breeding practices may be that cats intentionally bred to have abnormal legs can be happy.

2)Angular limb deformity surgery is not for the faint hearted and significant owner buy-in and follow-up would be required. I would guess chopping both tibia and fibula and applying ilizirov style circular fixators would work best, but not likely something you have kicking around in a charity clinic or experience of (IMEX do a course once in a blue moon in UK on this). I have no idea if that would be sane for someone experienced in the technique or not, but I seriously doubt this kitten would be one to try this out on for first time.

3) Regarding "cheap and cheerful" surgery, the closest comparison I have is, as you suggest, that the tibia is short much like a short ulna in a chondrodystrophic breed. in that scenario, cutting the ulna and allowing growth seems pretty minimal morbidity, and I guess one could extrapolate that cutting the tibia might be similarly beneficial, but given it is the key weight-bearing bone in the leg the results might be disastrous. I think the cat would have to be fairly disabled (and have no-one wiser to turn to) before I would consider something as speculative as this. If one leg had tibia cut and did OK, could do other a month or more later; if it fractured through the fibula, then I guess you are in a similar position to where yo uwould be if you cut both bones, but in a much less controlled manner.

4) Reassessing in a month may be reasonable.

5) I would not castrate this cat until the growth plates have closed most likely.

6) Thanks for sharing interesting case - please do let us know if you get any more expert opinions or, indeed, in a few months time if you have follow-up on what occurs that we can learn from.

RE: Short tibias in a cat?

Tafara Mapuvire — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 16:02:08 GMT

Interesting case. I will take a wild guess. Bilateral limb lengthening osteotomy/ostectomy of tibias with bridging osteosybthesis and osteotomy of fibulas so they can straighten. Not sure if soft tissues of the crus will stretch enough to allow limb lengthening though. My guess is regardless of what you do, there are going to be long term issues with the stifles and tarsi.

Tafara