{"id":688510,"date":"2025-02-11T17:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T17:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.catster.com\/?p=688510"},"modified":"2025-02-11T17:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T17:11:14","slug":"new-hope-for-a-fatal-feline-disease-fip-treatment-gets-a-green-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.catster.com\/weekly-mews\/new-hope-for-a-fatal-feline-disease-fip-treatment-gets-a-green-light\/","title":{"rendered":"New Hope for a Fatal Feline Disease: Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) Treatment Gets a Green Light"},"content":{"rendered":"
Until very recently, a diagnosis of the disease Feline Infectious Peritonitis, better known as FIP<\/a>, was an automatic death sentence. An aggressive inflammatory disease, FIP is a mutation of a relatively benign form of feline coronavirus, a distant relation to COVID-19.<\/p>\n Interestingly, it was the human coronavirus pandemic that accelerated the development of the first effective treatment for FIP, Remdesivir<\/a>. This injectable antiviral medication had been in development before COVID-19 struck, but the sudden need for human treatments sent the research and development teams at Gilead<\/a> into overdrive. While this was good news for those suffering from severe forms of COVID-19, it was great news for vets and cat owners, whose options when faced with FIP patients in the past had been palliation and euthanasia.<\/p>\n In 2021, Remdesivir was being rolled out in Australia, the UK, and parts of Europe, with promising results. Although not a guaranteed cure, vets were finally seeing FIP patients improving and going home. However, a lack of FDA approval in the US meant that this potentially life-saving treatment was still out of reach for many. Desperate cat owners were even turning to \u2018black market\u2019 sources to obtain the drug.<\/p>\n Three years after its initial release, the FDA has tentatively cleared the path for an alternative form of Remdesivir, a tablet known only as GS-441524<\/a>, for use in the US. In a recent statement<\/a>, the FDA wished to:<\/p>\n In other words, we haven\u2019t approved it, but we know you\u2019re going to use it, and we\u2019re not going to try to stop you. What a clever way to magnanimously allow treatment to proceed without the risk of shouldering any blame if things go wrong!<\/p>\n Studies indicate that the efficacy of the oral medication<\/a> is comparable<\/a> to that of the injection, but a combination of the two forms may be even more effective. Case studies have reported a range of responses, including remission, relapse, and death, but with only 4 years’ worth of real-world cases, it will be some time before we can evaluate long-term outcomes. For now, it is enough to say that cats diagnosed with FIP<\/a> are finally being given the chance to have <\/em>a long-term outcome.<\/p>\n Next item on the list: come up with a name a little more marketable than GS-441524!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Until very recently, a diagnosis of the disease Feline Infectious Peritonitis, better known as FIP, was an automatic death sentence. An aggressive inflammatory disease, FIP is a mutation of a relatively benign form of feline coronavirus, a distant relation to COVID-19. Interestingly, it was the human coronavirus pandemic that accelerated the development of the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3889,"featured_media":688579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[699],"tags":[459],"class_list":["post-688510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-mews","tag-catster-homepage-3-posts"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/p>\n