How CPMA affects survivability
The panel discusses how CPMA impacts survivability, hospital morale, and the human/animal bond
Sponsored by Elanco Animal Health
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA
How do you see CPMA make an impact on survivability in Parvo puppies?
Michael Lappin, DVM, PhD, DACVIM
It will narrow our success to close to 100%, if given at the right time, and if there's no other cofactors that would not respond to a monoclonal antibody. Great example, if it was coinfected with parvo virus and canine distemper virus, then we may still have a negative outcome. Even though we neutralized the Parvo, we just had another virus. And as we know, from the number of great papers in the last 10 years now that we can do PCR panels a lot cheaper, many of these animals do have coinfections that might impact success, right? So we'll never achieve 100% because we never know that it's only Parvo. And that's where hopefully the company will ultimately follow up those failure cases or suspected failure cases to actually prove whether other explain that failure, which I expect with conditional licensure time.
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA
And, you know, we hear these puppies have been hospitalized. You hear the beeping and sounds and loud things. We're trying to do everything we can to help decrease fear, anxiety and stress, knowing that we have this product that's available, what impact do you think that's going to make on puppies that are surviving from Parvo?
Christopher Pachel, DVM, DACVB, CABC
I'm really excited to see. And you know, my perspective on this as we're talking about where are we going to be a year from now, that's when my world kicks in. And I'm not seeing them on the frontline. It's where are we at when those puppies often hit adolescence, and they start to have big feelings about the world around them, that's when the early traumas really tend to surface. So I'm looking ahead to that time to then say, what sensitivities do we have? Do we think that that we've made a an adequate difference by minimizing that hospitalization timeframe by minimizing trauma by really trying to, to even just start by being aware of the impact on human animal bond and the process of communicating that to clients? If we have the opportunity to include that within our education and our literature? I'm a happy camper.
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA
Yeah, just reuniting with them earlier, it's gonna make such a huge impact. The emotional bond that this must make a huge impact for both the pet parents and and even the pets, right?
Absolutely. I mean, it goes down the line again, whether we're talking about the pet, the owner, the veterinary team, the shelter staff, the trainers, the behavior consultants, everybody who is waiting, waiting in the wings to help those puppies develop into really well socialized, healthy adult dogs. We get opportunities that we otherwise wouldn't have. And that's just an amazing, amazing thing to look forward to.
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA
From an ER perspective, it must feel that you have more power over Parvo with your team knowing that you can you have a treatment modality in place.
Erik Zager, DVM, DACVECC
Up until now, it felt like trying to hold back the tidal wave as best as you can. And, you know, to actually feel like you have a targeted therapy is a huge deal. When you read any disease you're learning as a vet student and the treatment for the diseases supportive care, that's never a fun thing to read. And so when you're reading something like "alright, this is the treatment for this disease," it is definitely a feeling of empowerment that you can do more than just try to stand against the tidal wave.
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA
What do you think? I'm curious to get your opinion for the vet students that are coming out and what do you think that means for them for the future doctors knowing that they have this therapy in place?
Michael Lappin, DVM, PhD, DACVIM
Yeah, I think for the veterinary students and honestly the postgraduate veterinarian, this is really a nice combination of...We know, passive immunotherapy works. This isn't a new concept of neutralizing a virus before it can kill you. It's actually a well-proven pathway to saving creatures two legged and four legged. As mentioned earlier, SARS-CoV-2 is a great example. Right nowI think we need to educate practitioners, the vet students and owners when they're having to pay the bill for a targeted therapy like this. Well, it's new because it's standardized and a wonderful product that's going to be the same over and over and over, backed up by a great drug company. But [in] conceptwe already know it's destined to succeed because passive immunotherapy has succeeded in multiple other examples, including parvo virus. Now we can just buy a nice standardized product that's backed up by a great drug company, and we just need to educate those that don't know anything about passive immunotherapy or forgotten after they graduate.
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA
And how do you think Animal Shelter is moving forward to adopt some sort of a treatment protocol with CPMA
Fathom Woods
I think it will shorten the hospitalization time for sure. We won't need as much resources for medication and treatment and paying staff to work overnight texts for the criticals to monitor them, like all of these things can potentially decrease. And it'll just change the game completely for the shelters.
