Heart disease in cattle: diagnosis, therapeutic approaches and prognosis.

Heart disease in cattle remains medically challenging both to diagnose and to treat. This is in part due to its low incidence in the bovine species but also because the prognosis is typically guarded to poor. The majority of published data concerning bovine heart disease are case studies and case reports. The aim of this article is to review the evidence-based medicine on the principal heart diseases of cattle (pericarditis, bacterial endocarditis, congenital heart defects, cor pulmonale, dilated cardiomyopathy and heart neoplasms), with emphasis on their diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.