Comparison of foods with differing nutritional profiles for long-term management of acute nonobstructive idiopathic cystitis in cats

Objective—To evaluate the effect of nutrition on recurrent clinical signs of lower urinary tract (LUT) disease in cats with idiopathic cystitis. Design—Randomized, controlled, masked clinical trial. Animals—31 cats with acute nonobstructive idiopathic cystitis. Procedures—Cats were assigned to receive 1 of 2 foods (a cystitis prevention or control food) that differed in mineral (calcium, phosphorous, and magnesium), antioxidant, and fatty acid profiles. Owners documented LUT signs daily for up to 1 year. The primary endpoint was the number of recurrent episodes in which a cat had multiple (≥ 0.2 concurrent) LUT signs within a day (defined as multiple-sign day). Consecutive days in which a cat had multiple LUT signs were considered as a single episode. Results—4 cats fed prevention food and 2 cats fed control food were excluded from analysis because of noncompliance, gastrointestinal signs, food refusal, or owner voluntary withdrawal. The proportion of cats fed prevention food that had ≥ 1 recurrent episode of multiple-sign days (4/11) was not significantly lower than that of cats fed control food (9/14). However, cats fed prevention food had significantly lower mean incidence rates for recurrent episodes of multiple-sign days (0.7 episodes/1,000 cat-days) and episodes of hematuria (0.3 episodes/1,000 cat-days), dysuria (0.2 episodes/1,000 cat-days), and stranguria (0.2 episodes/1,000 cat-days) as single LUT signs, compared with cats fed control food (5.4, 3.4, 3.1, and 3.8 episodes/1,000 cat-days, respectively). Significantly fewer cats fed prevention food required analgesics (4/11), compared with cats fed control food (12/14). Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Foods with differing nutritional profiles appeared to impact mean incidence rates of recurrent feline idiopathic cystitis-associated signs.