Epidemiological studies on the expectation of life for cats computed from animal cemetery records.

Abstract

Based on the Chiang's method, the life table for cats was constructed from the death data of 3936 cats. They died in the Kanto area and were buried in an animal cemetery in Tokyo from June 1981 through May 1982. This life table seems to be the first one for domestic pet cats. The expectation of life for cats was 4.2 years at age 0, 5.0 years at age 1, 5.4 years at age 4, 5.3 years at age 5, 3.5 years at age 10, and 2.2 years at age 15. The maximum age at death was 22 years. From age 0 to age 5, the probability of dying for cats was higher than that for dogs, but over 6 years of age it seemed that Gompertz's equation was applicable to this life table for cats. From these results, if the probability of dying for cats at early ages decreases, the fundamental pattern of dying curve for cats seems to be a similar figure of dogs. The life table was constructed for different breeds and localities. Comparing the expectation of life at age 1 (e1) of the two populations divided by breeds or localities, there was significant difference in the e1 among different localities but not among different breeds. These facts suggest the existence of some factors which may influence the life span of cats among different localities.

Long‐term incidence and risk of noncardiovascular and all‐cause mortality in apparently healthy cats and cats with preclinical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

“…To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first long‐term comparison of causes of death between populations that at study entry were initially healthy or had preclinical HCM/HOCM. Death from cancer, CKD and CWLVDA represented 75%‐80% of noncardiovascular mortality in cats originating from around the world, confirming the major impact of these conditions on life expectancy . These findings complement the epidemiology of cardiovascular mortality reported from the same population .…”

“…Most studies derive from veterinary insurance reports, cemetery and necropsy records, surveys, clinical registries, national research databases, health screening, and medical record reviews from primary and tertiary care practices. Information from these sources is generally limited to prevalence data, that is, the percentage of deaths due to a disease or condition identified at a point in time.…”

Prevalence of canine cataract: preliminary results of a cross‐sectional study

“…These differences are not particularly surprising, given that the longevities of cats and horses are greater than that of dogs. [11][12][13] Age-related cataract would seem to occur at a similar proportion of life-span for these different species, although considerable further research is required to substantiate such a hypothesis. For the different dog breeds investigated here C 50 is between 0.68 and 0.85 of total longevity.…”

“…We have shown in concurrent work in other species, as yet unpublished, that while the dog has an average C 50 of 9.4 ± 3.3 years, the cat has a significantly later C 50 of 12.7 ± 3.5 ( P = 0.0005) and the horse a still later C 50 of 28.3 ± 9.1 ( P < 0.0001). These differences are not particularly surprising, given that the longevities of cats and horses are greater than that of dogs 11–13 . Age‐related cataract would seem to occur at a similar proportion of life‐span for these different species, although considerable further research is required to substantiate such a hypothesis.…”

Prevalence of feline cataract: results of a cross‐sectional study of 2000 normal animals, 50 cats with diabetes and one hundred cats following dehydrational crises

“…Is the same association seen in the cat? Although Michel's previous work provided longevity data for different breeds of dog, there is no definitive data on the average lifespan of different cat breeds but for a paper on cemetery records for cats from the Far East in the mid 1980s, 12 data which are probably not of great relevance to the cat population in this study. Anecdotal reports from cat breeders give some indication of the expected lifespan of specific breeds.…”