Fourteen cats received canine plasma transfusions across three hospitals between 2022 and 2024.
The figure that matters: 35.7 percent
Five of those fourteen cats survived to discharge. That's the number an emergency DVM needs when the feline plasma stock is empty and the cat in front of you is coagulopathic and crashing.
The study, published in the Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, is a retrospective chart review from one university teaching hospital and two private referral hospitals. Sixteen total transfusions to fourteen cats. The median volume administered was 11.35 mL/kg, range 5.25 to 31.9. Median transfusion time was 3.9 hours, range 0.15 to 24 hours.
Seven cats had confirmed coagulopathy on pre-transfusion labs, elevated aPTT, elevated PT, or both. Six of those seven had measurable coagulation values before and after. Three achieved normalization of both PT and aPTT post-transfusion. One normalized PT only. One normalized aPTT but still had mild PT prolongation, defined as less than 1.5-fold the upper reference interval.
Five cats received canine plasma for oncotic support. One received it for severe hypovolemia. One cat's indication was listed as suspected coagulopathy without confirmatory labs.
What it is not
This is not a survival-rate study. The cats in this case series were critically ill across multiple disease processes. Six were euthanized. Three experienced cardiopulmonary arrest. The authors do not attribute those outcomes to the transfusion itself, and the study design cannot separate transfusion effect from underlying disease severity.
It is also not a safety study. Six cats received canine plasma products exclusively. Of those six, two were suspected to have experienced acute transfusion reactions, both categorized as acute respiratory distress. The denominator is small and the reaction definition is retrospective chart language, not a prospective grading scale.
The study tracked what happened. It did not compare canine plasma to feline plasma, to synthetic colloids, or to no transfusion. There is no control arm and no way to know whether any individual cat's coagulation correction or survival was because of the canine plasma, despite it, or unrelated.
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The decision it gives you
If you are an emergency or critical-care DVM and your hospital runs out of feline plasma, this study tells you that canine plasma has been used sixteen times in similar situations at hospitals willing to document it, that coagulation values corrected in most of the cases where correction was the goal, and that at least two cats in the exclusive-canine-plasma cohort showed signs of respiratory distress that the treating vets thought might be transfusion reactions.
It does not tell you the reaction was caused by the canine plasma, respiratory distress is common in critically ill cats for dozens of reasons. It does not tell you the survival rate you should quote to a client, because the case mix is too heterogeneous and the sample is fourteen cats. It does not tell you this is standard of care, and it does not tell you it isn't.
What it does is move xenotransfusion from "nobody has published anything" to "here are sixteen documented cases with named indications, dosing ranges, and outcome categories." If you are standing in front of a coagulopathic cat at 2 a.m. with no feline plasma and a canine unit in the freezer, you now have something other than theory.
The inventory question
If you run a 24-hour or referral practice, the study raises but does not answer whether stocking canine plasma as a feline backup is defensible. The authors conclude that canine plasma "can be considered a life-saving option in the absence of feline plasma products," but they also state plainly that "the safety profile of canine plasma transfusions in cats remains to be determined."
That is not an endorsement. It is a description of the current evidence base: small, retrospective, and missing the data you would need to write a protocol with confidence. The study gives you enough to defend the decision in an emergency if feline product is unavailable. It does not give you enough to make canine plasma a planned first-line choice.
The coagulation correction data is the strongest part. Three of six cats with documented pre- and post-transfusion values normalized both PT and aPTT. That is not a rate, the sample is too small, but it is more than zero, and zero was the previous published count.
Five of fourteen cats survived to discharge after receiving canine plasma. The study cannot tell you whether the plasma helped, hurt, or was irrelevant to that outcome.
What the paper is
A multicenter retrospective case series. Fourteen cats, three hospitals, two years. No randomization, no blinding, no comparison group. The authors pulled transfusion records and outcome data from charts. They report what was done, what was measured, and what happened next. They do not claim causation and they flag the limitations in the abstract.
The study is small because the scenario is rare. Feline plasma shortages happen, but most hospitals either have product, can get it from a blood bank, or euthanize rather than attempt cross-species transfusion. Sixteen documented cases over two years at three hospitals that see high caseloads tells you this is not common even when it is possible.
The value is that it exists. Before this, the literature on canine-to-feline plasma transfusion was case reports and expert opinion. Now it is case reports, expert opinion, and a 14-cat case series with coagulation data. That is not a leap, but it is a step, and if you are the DVM making the call at 2 a.m. it is the only step the literature has given you.