URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS OF SMALL ANIMALS: LITERATURE REVIEW

• DOI: 10.22533/at.ed.1593882318108

• Palavras-chave: urinary tract infection; little animals; urine culture; urinalysis

• Keywords: urinary tract infection; little animals; urine culture; urinalysis

• Abstract:

  Urinary tract infections are quite common in the clinical routine of small animals and have become one of the main causes of antimicrobial prescriptions. Treatment based solely on the presence of clinical signs, without performing a urine culture, can lead to errors and contribute to the increase in bacterial resistance to antimicrobials. A complete and targeted anamnesis, the recognition of specific clinical signs and the performance of complementary exams enable the diagnosis of cystitis, which can be either bacterial or simply inflammatory. The most common complementary tests to be performed are urinalysis and abdominal ultrasound. The gold standard for confirming the presence of bacteria and their susceptibility is bacterial urine culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). This literature review aims to cover the most common small animal urinary tract infections in the veterinarian's routine and their appropriate treatments. The references selected for the review were obtained from the following international databases: PubMed, SciELO and Google Scholar.