Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everybody,
I'm new to this board. My name is Marta, I'm writing from Italy so please excuse my English!
I'm a member of a board similar to this one in Italy (it's all written in Italian, but here it is: www.micimiao.net/forum) and I'm looking for help for a cat called Attila, whose owner has been a member of the same board for years. Attila is 3 y.o. and he was diagnosed a rare disease called "orbital aspergillosis". It's a fungus that hides behing the eyes and quickly spreads to invade eyes, nose and brain. Attila lost his left eye and will soon lose his other eye as well, but this is not going to be enough to save his life, unless we find a newer, more effective therapy than the one his vets prescribed... which seemed to be the best available for the moment. The therapy consists of oral posaconazole (the drug is called Noxafil and costs about 800 Euros in Europe... we raised funds thanks to donations from all over Europe to buy it!) but it's not working very well.
The reason I'm writing, is that we read on this website (http://www.jaaha.org/cgi/content/abstract/42/4/302) that the only other case of orbital aspergillosis in a cat was in the USA, a persian cat was successfully cured in your Country and we are trying to get in touch with the owners of this cat and/or with the vets who cured him/her. We have no idea where they live and exactly when their cat got this disease, but considering the drug "posaconazole" is a quite recent one, we hope they can still be reached. Maybe they read this board, maybe someone knows them or can help us find them.
We would like to get in touch to compare our experience with theirs, to understand if their cat went thorough the same pain that Attila is enduring and knowing that he was saved, maybe we can find a little hope for our dear, lovely Attila. We really are desperate to find them and to get in touch with anyone who can give us any help or support in this situation, so if you can help us please feel free to get in touch at: attilathecat@libero.it
We have sent an email to the researchers who wrote that study, we hope they'lle get back to us, but any other kind of help is welcome.

If you don't know about this disease but would like to help, please forward this message to any pet rescue group you know about or to your veterinarian or to your friends, I know it's a shot in the dark but maybe if this message circulates we can find someone who can help. We don't want money, we just want to find a cure to this disease that can save Attila's life and other cats' lives in the future who might be affected with the same fungus.

Thanks for reading! Marta

ps: this is a link to a video where you can see Attila: http://picasaweb.google.it/valinattila/Attila/photo#5166504208966313282

Hi Marta,

Welcome to the Board! You write very well, by the way

I can't promise that I will come up with anything, but I'm going to try and do some research and talk to my vet about this disease. She is a cat-only vet so I'm hoping she might be familiar with this type of fungus, or at least read about the case of the cat that was cured.

I'll also remember Atilla in my prayers. I feel so bad for him.

Regards,
PHKitkat

Thank you so, so very much!
I know it's hard to find someone who will say "yes, of course, I've know this disease all my life!" considering it's so rare and fatal, but my hope is that forwarding our story to as many people as possible, above all veterinarians or experts, we will run into someone who can actually help us. In Italy our vets knew very little about it, we found out about the posaconazole therapy thanks to the articles we found on the web, and this therapy was actually invented by American veterinarians, so we tend to suppose that if there is someone who knows a lot about aspergillus, they are probably in the USA... we just need to find them, which is not that easy...!
We are doing all we can, we are not going to let Attila fly on to the Rainbow Bridge without fighting this horrible disease, he is a lively cat, he's eating, he's grooming, he's going out for small walks in the garden even if he is almost blind and his eye is hurting... we want to live and we are determnied to help him win this fight! I thank you very much for your help, and for your prayers. Let's hope there will be good news sooon!
Marta

Marta -- You may have luck contacting the Cornell University Feline Health Center. I used this resource once when my cat contracted a rare cancer my vet was not familiar with (I spoke to an oncologist at Cornell that only treats feline cancer and he had only heard of this type cancer about 6 times in the thousands of cats he treated specifically for cancer). They are an excellent resource. I spent about $40 for the phone consult, but I think the cost may be up slightly by now to around $50 or so. You pay by credit card and the vet talked as long as I wanted to, no time limit. But, I think you pay per call, so if you need to follow-up, it still costs, but a little less for follow-up calls.

You'll talk to an operator when you first call in that will try to get you as close as possible to a vet on staff the specializes in the problem your cat has. Be very specific with the operator in what you want to talk to a vet about, what type vet you want. For instance, I asked for an oncologist that specialized in cancer so I didn't get a general internist. If you explain the disease and how rare up-front, the operator can check on staff to see if anyone can help. The operator actually works at Cornell and can reach out to the vets.

This is a resource to use after vet visits to find more info on a diagnosis, particularly rare diagnosis. It is worth a shot for a fairly inexpensive consult. I wish you luck!

Here is a link, you can dig around the website.

http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/contact.htm
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Tammy and Pookey
(Stanley 8/91 - 8/07)