The role of uropathogens in feline lower urinary tract disease. Clinical implications.

Bacterial, fungal, and parasitic uropathogens have small but significant roles as causative agents in naturally occurring feline lower urinary tract disease. However, the exact cause of hematuria, dysuria, and/or urethral obstruction remains unknown in a large percentage of cats. Feline calicivirus, feline syncytia-forming virus, bovine herpesvirus-4, mycoplasmas, and ureaplasmas are potential uropathogens whose etiopathogenic roles in idiopathic feline lower urinary tract disease remain, as of yet, unresolved.