Massimo’s rare condition successfully treated

Massimo a beautiful 10-year-old Tonkinese cat came in to see us recently for treatment of his nasopharyngeal stenosis which is a rare condition in cats where their breathing is restricted as they have scar tissue in their internal nasal passages. It is a condition that kittens can be born with (a congenital disease), however, it can also be seen in adult cats, if they have had nasal or gastrointestinal disease.

Around 7 years ago, Massimo was referred to us and diagnosed with this condition. There are several ways that it can be diagnosed. CT scans are often used, however some thin stenosis is not visible on the scan, so nasopharyngeal endoscopy becomes an essential step of the diagnostic process. Following the diagnosis, our team performed a balloon dilation as Massimo’s was a severe case. This is a procedure that involves surgically inserting a small balloon into the nasal cavity, which is slowly and gently inflated to widen the affected nasal passage. He improved dramatically after the procedure for around 18 months.

From then on, his owner noticed a very gradual recurrent of signs and Massimo experienced a number of upper respiratory tract infections. In the last year, his dedicated owner noticed him get progressively worse with noisy breathing, shortness of breath and more frequent sneezing. He went to one of the other hospitals within our group and they referred him to our internal medicine team at Anderson Moore who performed another successful balloon dilation.

His owner recently reported that it has been another great success and that she was really pleased with the result, delighted to see that his energy levels had considerably increased as had his enthusiasm!