Felv PCR

Hello vets Not an emergency, just and information/advise Situation Hello I'm from Portugal so if my English isn't good enough don't be mad at me. Felv in Portugal is unfortunately almost considered a death sentence. To make things difficult, I live in a small town and after asking advice from several veterinarians, I don't think they understand this disease very well because they don't know very well what to advise. Quick summary Guido was a stray cat. He is now 9 or 10 months old. In the first week of April he was attacked by another cat. On April 12th I rescued him to treat an infected wound. He was hospitalized for 12 days and recovered very well from de huge infection. He did an Elisa test that day and it was negative for Fiv/Felv. On the 26th of May, after a quarantine, he repeated the test and it was positive for leukemia. I asked a serological test, 4 days later the leukemia was confirmed. All indicates he contracted leukemia during the attack, it must now be 11 weeks since he contracted the virus. After reading a lot I discovered a PCR test that can be done to quantify the amount of virus and classify leukemia as progressive or regressive. From how many weeks should that PCR be done?   Thanks for any help you can give me

Hello - I'm sorry that it has taken a few days to answer this question.  I didn't know the answer.  Of course I have Googled it - as no doubt you have done  - and most answers from good sources range from three weeks to over a month.  However, I don't think that you want to know when to do a PCR test; I think you want to know when to do the particular PCR test that your vet is going to run, because it ought to have been verified by research and such limits of the test should be firmly stated by the lab or in the instructions.   Therefore, I would reccommended consulting the particular instructions for interpreting the test, or else calling the test company, or getting your vet to call them.

In short, I beleive that the answer is probably between 4 and 6 weeks but should be confirmed with the laboratory for the specific testing method that is being run.

For example, if you were to use the Idexx laboratory, they reccommend doing a PCR and an antigen by Elisa test.  If both are negative, they will rule out the possibility of FeLV infection.   Idexx should be prepared to answer any queries about the timing of these tests.

Hello I will contact the Iddex laboratório to be sure if it's to soon to do the rest. But thanks for your answer