Feline Diabetes: Thinking Outside the Bottle

Even though diabetes in cats isn’t new, some of the options for treating diabetic cats are. How do you know when to use insulin, or when it’s ok to choose a sodium-glucose cotransporter2 (SGLT2) inhibitor? After a quick review of the unique characteristics of feline diabetes mellitus and the associated risk factors, the session will examine this new class of drugs of SGLT2 inhibitors, and how the new treatment exerts its action in the kidneys to increase excretion of glucose in the urine and lower persistent hyperglycemia. The webinar will cover safety and effectiveness results of a pivotal field trial and answer how to make the best treatment decisions to dramatically improve life for diabetic cats, their caregivers, and veterinarians.

Learning Objectives

After attending this webinar, participants should be able to:

• Be comfortable in identifying which cats are appropriate for treatment with an SGLT2 inhibitor.
• Understand the key points of monitoring cats who are on SGLT2 inhibitors.
• Get tools to communicate with clients and staff about the safety and efficacy of this new class of treatment for diabetic cats.

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Speaker Bios

Renee Rucinsky, DVM, DABVP(Feline)

Dr. Renee Rucinsky is a graduate of the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, and has been board certified as a feline specialist by the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners since 2001. She has been in private practice in Maryland for the last 20 years, and has special interests in endocrinology and geriatrics. Dr. Rucinsky has been a part of multiple national guideline publications, including both versions of the AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines, as well AAFP Hyperthyroid Management Guidelines and Nursing Care Guidelines, and co-chair of the 2023 AAHA Selected Endocrinopathies Guidelines. When not taking care of ungrateful feline patients at her regular practice, she co-owns and runs an I131 treatment center with her longtime registered technician. She is also very active within leadership of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners, and is the current president.

Although Dr. Rucinsky is a cat specialist and frequent lecturer on all things feline, she is still very much a dog person, and is currently owned by a very needy plain brown dog who has probably decided in her small dog brain that mom is never coming home. When not doing cat things, Dr. Rucinsky can be found trail running or mountain biking, trying not to think about all the things on her to do list that she’s ignoring.

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RACE Credits 

This program 20-1193588/20-1193590 is approved by the AAVSB RACE to offer a total of 1.00 CE Credits (1.00 max) being available to any one veterinarian: and/or 1.00 Veterinary Technician CE Credits (1.00 max). This RACE approval is for the subject matter category(ies) of: Medical using the delivery method(s) of Non-Interactive Distance. This approval is valid in jurisdictions which recognize AAVSB RACE; however, participants are responsible for ascertaining each board’s CE requirements.

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