Rabbit Medicine and Surgery: Self-Assessment Color Review, Second Edition, Q&A 05

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Student tip: This case is helpful but could be usefully viewed with an image of a normal heart for comparison.

An 8-year-old male neutered, crossbred house rabbit is acutely dyspnoeic. The animal collapses and dies suddenly on presentation.

Question	Answer		Article
What are the lesion(s) observed in the photograph (see above) taken at postmortem examination?	The photograph shows the heart, which is pale and has hypertrophy of the ventricles. There is a thrombus firmly attached to the left atrial wall.		Link to Article
What is the most likely cause of the postmortem changes in this animal?	The most likely cause of the observed postmortem changes is idiopathic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Other types of heart disease include other cardiomyopathies (dilated and secondary to chronic stress), myocarditis (secondary to Encephalitozoon cuniculi, Salmonella spp. or coronavirus infection), myocardial fibrosis, pericarditis (secondary to Pasteurella multocida or Staphylococcus spp. infection), valvular disease (mitral and tricuspid insufficiencies and endocarditis) and congenital defects (atrial and ventricular septal defects and haemocyst).		[[ Replace text with name and subsection of relevant WikiVet page if in existence eg. Feather - Anatomy & Physiology#Structure & Function |Link to Article]]

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