Feline Triad - Symptoms and Treatment

Author: Peter Berry
Date Of Creation: 11 February 2021
Update Date: 3 November 2024
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Chronic Enteropathy in Dogs and Cats
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Cats are more likely than other animals to contract the triad, or triaditis: a situation that occurs when they breed together inflammatory diseases in three of the organs related to the digestive process, the intestine, liver and pancreas.

Although cats are experts at hiding their pain from us, doing so becomes more complicated when several illnesses come together at once, allowing us to identify that something is wrong and act quickly to avoid the serious consequences that feline triaditis can have.

Do you want to know more about the Feline Triad - Symptoms and Treatment? In this article by PeritoAnimal, we will clarify all doubts about this complex, complete and common disease that affects cats.


what is the feline triad

The feline triad, or feline triaditis, is a typical pathology in cats that occurs at the same time. the inflammation of three organs: intestine, liver and pancreas. In other words, in the triad cats suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, cholangitis and pancreatitis at the same time.

However, the symptoms of the three diseases in many cases are similar to those of other pathologies, which can make their diagnosis difficult. It can also happen that one of the symptoms manifests itself more than the others, confounding the clinical diagnosis. For this reason, in cats it is very important. assess the status of the three organs always, even if it seems clear that our feline has only the inflammation of one of them.

What Causes the Feline Triad

Since the triad comprises three different organs, the causes can be different. Next, we'll see what the causes are main feline triad:


  • cat anatomy: More than 80% of domestic cats are especially predisposed to this disease due to their anatomy, as there is a close link between the three. In practice, its pancreatic and biliary ducts (those that leave the pancreas and liver) open at the same place as the first stretch of the small intestine. This implies that liver contents may rise to the pancreas by reflux during vomiting or by abnormal intestinal motility and thus distributing the infection or inflammation among these organs.
  • More bacteria than dogs: Another of the causes that favor the feline triad is that the cat's intestine has 100 times more bacteria than the canine's, thus favoring infections and consequently inflammation.

For each disease separately, the causes that can be attributed to them are as follows:


Causes of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Cats

The most accepted theory of the cause of inflammatory bowel disease is the onset of abnormal responses to bacterial population present in it, which leads to inflammation of this organ by infiltration of inflammatory cells into a layer of the intestine called the mucosa.

Causes of Feline Pancreatitis

The causes of most feline pancreatitis are unknown and can be attributed to:

  • Drugs (Organophosphates, L-Asparaginase or Azathioprine).
  • Virus (Parvovirus, Herpesvirus, PIF, Calicivirus).
  • parasites.
  • Inflammation in the liver or intestine.

It is not clear what role food plays in this disease, but a reduction in the amount of food in some cats may be important in some cats. dietary fat.

Causes of cholangitis in cats

There are two types of cholangitis in cats. Thus, depending on the type of feline cholangitis, the causes can be:

  • Bacteria: Neutrophil-type cholangitis (which are the first defense cells to appear after an infection) is thought to arise due to an elevation of bacteria from a gastrointestinal infection, perhaps this is why it is more often associated with pacreatitis.
  • Immune-mediated process: in the case of lymphocytic cholangitis in cats, it is believed that the cause may be more associated with an immune-mediated process. .
  • parasites: in chronic cases of cholangitis in cats, it is believed that they may be related to parasites - flat worms called trematodes in endemic areas of the disease, being Metorchis albidus and Opisthorchis felineus caseworkers in Europe, for example.

Feline Triad Symptoms

The clinical signs of feline triaditis in cats are quite nonspecific and can vary greatly depending on the degree of involvement and inflammation of each organ involved. However, the common symptoms of the feline triad are:

  • Anorexia.
  • Weight loss.
  • Weakness.
  • Vomiting.
  • Diarrhea.

Next, we will explain the specific symptomatology of each of the three pathologies:

Symptoms of Feline Inflammatory Bowel Disease

It is a disease that occurs more often in middle-aged cats and its symptoms are very similar to an intestinal tumor called lymphoma, which is more common in older cats, but it can also occur at other ages. Along with the drop in appetite and weight loss, the clinical signs that an affected cat presents are vomiting and diarrhea appear for a long time or intermittently. Not to be confused with an adverse reaction to a food, in which these same signs are produced together with skin change and itching.

Symptoms of pancreatitis in cats

Of the three, this is the disease harder to diagnose, especially in cases where cats do not show persistent clinical signs.

The diversity in symptoms of pancreatitis in cats can range from asymptomatic to producing circulatory shock and multiple organ failure. Although pain is known to exist in almost all cats with pancreatitis, in most cases this sign goes unnoticed due to the cat's nature of hiding what is happening to them. Thus, the feline pancreatitis symptoms can be:

  • Ache.
  • Anorexia.
  • Lethargy.
  • Vomiting.
  • Diarrhea.
  • Yellowish coloration of the mucous membranes (jaundice).
  • Circulatory shock.
  • Multiple organ failure.

Feline pancreatitis can have consequences for our kitten such as fatty liver, diabetes or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency.

Symptoms of cholangitis in cats

Inflammatory liver disease is produced in the bile ducts (cholangitis), which, as we mentioned earlier, can be parasitic or, depending on the cell type involved in the inflammation, neutrophilic or lymphocytic. THE neutrophilic cholangitis is the most common and most serious, in which, in less than two weeks, cats manifest symptoms like:

  • Jaundice.
  • Fever.
  • Lethargy.
  • Anorexia.
  • Vomiting.
  • Diarrhea.
  • Weight loss.

already in lymphocytic cholangitis, symptoms can be:

  • Lethargy.
  • Lack of appetite.
  • Vomiting.
  • Weight loss.
  • Abdominal distension.

However, unlike the previous one, the cat can be more excited and may present polyphagia.

Feline Triad Diagnosis

The feline triad should always be considered in cats with clinical signs such as vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss or jaundice. In order to diagnose cholangitis in cats, one must resort to exams such as:

  • Liver ultrasound.
  • Bile sample analysis.
  • Blood analysis.

The only way to get a definitive diagnosis in cases of inflammatory bowel disease and pancreatitis is to perform a biopsy and histopathological examination, although for pancreatitis there are tests available to address the diagnosis, such as measuring feline pancreatic fat or performing an ultrasound.

Feline triad: treatment

To treat the triad in cats, the veterinarian must control the common and specific symptoms of each inflammatory disease, without forgetting possible drug interactions. In this way, the cat will receive two types of treatments: one specific for disease and other supportive treatments.

Supportive treatments for the feline triad

Support treatments will have the purpose of treat the symptoms of our cat, which can be:

  • appetite stimulants: to treat anorexia in cats, you can use appetite stimulants or, in the most severe cases, resort to feeding with an esophageal tube.
  • antiemetics: If our cat is vomiting, the veterinarian will prescribe antiemetics.
  • fluid therapy: in case of dehydration, the veterinarian may consider the use of fluid therapy to recover the cat's correct hydration.

Specific treatment according to the disease

To treat the diseases that make up the feline triad, the veterinarian can prescribe the following treatments:

  • Treatment for cholangitis in cats: in cholangitis, hepatoprotectants and ursodeoxycholic acid can be used, which increases the flow of bile, reduces fibrosis and inflammation; vitamin K if there are clotting problems and antibiotics for at least 4-6 weeks in cases of neutrophilic cholangitis.
  • Treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease: in this case, corticosteroids in immunosuppressive doses, such as prednisolone, are the first-line treatments. They should also be used in lymphocytic cholangitis and chronic forms of neutrophilic cholangitis. Other immunosuppressive drugs such as chlorambucil can be used in combination with these depending on the severity of the inflammatory bowel disease and, although at the time of diagnosis it is not altered, vitamin B12 or cobalamin may decrease and must be supplemented. Corticosteroids should be avoided in cases of bacterial infection, but when necessary, they should be given in conjunction with antibiotics.
  • Treatment for feline pancreatitis: In cases of pancreatitis, analgesia is needed to control pain, as well as implementing a low-fat, highly digestible diet. It should also be supplemented with pancreatic enzymes in cases where an exocrine pancreatic insufficiency has developed.

O prognosis it will depend on the severity of the disease, so if your cat has some of the symptoms we've discussed, such as anorexia, weight loss, vomiting and diarrhea, don't hesitate to take him to the vet to start a treatment that restores your health as quickly as possible and, thus, prevent them from producing irreversible damage that can affect your feline's quality and life expectancy.

This article is for information purposes only, at PeritoAnimal.com.br we are not able to prescribe veterinary treatments or perform any type of diagnosis. We suggest that you take your pet to the veterinarian in case it has any type of condition or discomfort.

If you want to read more articles similar to Feline Triad - Symptoms and Treatment, we recommend that you enter our Other health problems section.