World experience in the treatment of feline infectious peritonitis

Treatment of the feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), which is caused by the mutated feline coronavirus (FIPV), has been remaining a challenge for the experts in veterinary medicine and a real lottery of life for the patients with this diagnosis for an exceedingly long time. Experts in a variety of countries were trying to identify an effective way of FIP treatment by experimenting with the search and selection of the right dosage of the main drugs, as well as with the duration of therapeutic treatment. This article analyzes publications in open access courses in the English and Ukrainian languages, in which the topic was related to the experience of treatment of FIP and were published from January 2019 to August 2024. The analysis covers twenty scientific publications where the authors revealed the details of FIP treatment, including the main drugs, their dosage for various types of feline infectious peritonitis, duration of treatment and duration of life of the patients in the state of remission. Two publications contained protocols of FIP treatment that were offered by the authors of those publications at the background of successful treatment of this disease. In the result of the work through the scientific sources we found that the golden standard of feline infectious peritonitis treatment at the current stage is the use of the antiviral drug GS-441524 and its nucleoside analogue Remdesivir. The dosage of these drugs is estimated in the range of 10 to 20 mg/kg depending on the form of FIP and the severity of the patient’s condition with the effective duration of treatment from 28, 42 and up to 84 days with oral or subcutaneous introduction of the drug once in 24 hours. At the same time, we found a not less effective alternative antiviral drug called Molnupiravir with the same dosage conditions and with oral introduction once in 12 hours during 84 days. Molnupiravir is cheaper and available in Ukraine and is used as a substitute-drug in case of resistance to GS-441524. The research indicated a 10% to 30% relapse of FIP where the treatment success is seen to be dependent on the conditions of treatment. The authors of the article suggest that the future research in this field should focus on the identification of possible epigenetic aptitude for or resistance to FIP and the decrease of the antiviral therapy period during the treatment of FIP. Key words: treatment of feline infectious peritonitis, treatment protocol, GS-441524, Remdesivir, Molnupiravir.