Transvenous removal of heartworms from the pulmonary artery of a cat

This report and previous reports indicate that mechanical removal of heartw orms from cats is an effective and generally safe method of alleviating cli nical signs and reducing the worm burden in heavily parasitized cats. In th e cat described in this report treatment was deemed necessary because of th e worsening clinical signs and because the strongly positive antigen status suggested that the cat might have serious cardiopulmonary compromise when the parasites began to die of natural causes. Although not all of the heart worms were mechanically removed in this patient, the worm burden was suffic iently decreased to permanently eliminate the clinical signs, and to allow the patient to tolerate senescence and death of the remaining worms.