Myxomatous mitral valve disease is the most common cardiac disease in dogs, and the primary cause for congestive heart failure and cardiac-related death.

In this podcast, Prof Luca Ferasin, European and RCVS specialist in veterinary cardiology, discusses prevalence, prognosis and research.

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Prof Ferasin is a European and RCVS specialist in veterinary cardiology. Having graduated with honours in 1992 from the University of Bologna, after 3 years of research in endocrinology at the BBSRC Institute in Cambridge, he was awarded his PhD in 1996.

He taught canine and feline cardiorespiratory medicine at the University of Bristol for seven years, before joining the University of Minnesota as an associate professor in cardiology in 2005. Returning to the UK in 2008, he has worked in various referral institutions and has contributed extensively to the veterinary literature, with articles, abstracts, and book chapters, including the chapter on coughing in the latest edition of Ettinger’s textbook of Internal Medicine.

He and wife Heidi Ferasin, an RCVS advanced practitioner in veterinary cardiology, founded Specialist Veterinary Cardiology Consultancy [www.cardiospecialist.co.uk] in 2009. Its aim is to provide specialist veterinary cardiology care and clinical advice to small animal practices across southern England, and services include one for tele-cardiology and providing CPD.

A speaker at more than 200 national and international meetings, Prof Ferasin was awarded a fellowship of the RCVS in 2019.

In the podcast, Prof Ferasin refers to the ACVIM consensus guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of myxomatous mitral valve disease in dogs [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jvim.15488] issued by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. Further consensus statements in other areas are also available [www.acvim.org/Publications/JVIM/Consensus-Statements].

Prof Ferasin has written a Focus article in the 14 January issue of Veterinary Times (VT50.03), which is available – along with video and audio clips – at the Vet Times website [www.vettimes.co.uk/?p=208253].