Osteoarthritis in cats: what we know, and mostly, what we don’t know…yet
Osteoarthritis in cats: what we know, and mostly, what we don’t know…yet
Open access
In our edition of: Oct 2025
In our categories of: small animals
our summary:
Lefort-Holguin, M. et al (2025) Osteoarthritis in cats: what we know, and mostly, what we don’t know…yet. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 27 (7)
The aim of this narrative review was to provide an overview of the latest information on feline osteoarthritis (OA), including the clinical importance of the disease and the therapeutic approaches to managing OA in cats based on available evidence.
The first part of the review provides an overview of the importance of osteoarthritis as a source of chronic pain in cats, clinical and behavioural change signs and management options.
A literature search identified studies on both pharmacological and non-pharmacological management options. Most of the studies were evaluated to be weak and inconclusive due to the lack of robustness in study design.
The review then uses data derived from previously published studies from the authors research group, the Groupe de recherche en pharmacologie animale du Québec, to compare treatment options including meloxicam, firocoxib, tramadol, gabapentin and an experimental therapeutic diet (enriched in omega-3s EPA and DHA, turmeric extract and hydrolysed collagen). In these studies, validated pain measurements including stairs assay compliance, podobarometric gait analysis (PGA), nighttime actimetry monitoring (NAM) and the Montreal instrument for cat arthritis testing, for veterinarians (MI-CAT(V)) scale, were used to establish therapeutic efficacy through placebo and responder rates from each study.
Secondary analysis of the data showed the experimental diet induced a higher rate of responders on PGA than meloxicam, on Stairs and MI-CAT(V) than firocoxib, and on NAM than meloxicam, tramadol and gabapentin but not when compared with firocoxib.
Limitations of the study include the limited search for relevant literature, lack of information on the methodology behind the comparisons of treatment efficacy between the studies, and that the comparison of outcomes was from a small number of studies in which number of cats were inconsistent for the validated measures. Several of the authors of this review were also authors of the paper on the therapeutic diet; that study was funded by Royal Canin.
This narrative review gives an overview of management options for feline osteoarthritis and highlights the lack of available evidence in this area, and the need for standardisation of feline osteoarthritis assessment tools.
The following may also be of interest:
inFOCUS: Efficacy and safety of a diet enriched with EPA and DHA, turmeric extract and hydrolysed collagen in management of naturally occurring osteoarthritis in cats: A prospective, randomised, blinded, placebo- and time-controlled study [RCVS Knowledge] [Online] Available from: https://infocus.rcvsknowledge.org/efficacy-and-safety-of-a-diet-enriched-with-epa-and-dha-turmeric-extract-and-hydrolysed-collagen-in-management-of-naturally-occurring-osteoarthritis-in-cats-a-prospective-randomised-blinded-place/ [Accessed 17 October 2025]
In the Spotlight: Quality of Life assessment tools: pain assessment tools: species specific assessment tools: cats [RCVS Knowledge] [Online] Available from: https://infocus.rcvsknowledge.org/qol-quality-of-life-assessment-tools-pain-assessment-species-specific-assessment-tools-cats/ [Accessed 17 October 2025]
Langley-Hobbs, S. (2023) Update on diagnosing and managing osteoarthritis in cats. In Practice, 45 (10), pp. 594-608. https://doi.org/10.1002/inpr.380
Gruen, M.E. et al. (2022) 2022 AAHA Pain Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats. Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association, 58 (2), pp. 55-66. https://doi.org/10.5326/JAAHA-MS-7292
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