Resurrecting FUS: Adrenal androgens as an ultimate cause of hematuria, periuria, pollakuria, stranguria, urolithiasis and obstruction in neutered cats

Abstract

Although many authors have doubted that "feline urological syndrome" (FUS) describes a real pathogenetic entity, because it subsumes such a large variety of signs, Sumner's recent finding that urethral obstruction occurs most frequently in springtime adds to a large body of evidence that lower urinary tract problems occur most commonly in late winter and spring. This suggests that FUS may be a unitary disorder, with a hormonal basis, driven by increasing day length. We argue that rising adrenal androgens (AA) in neutered cats induce stress, and other more concrete manifestations of FUS through androgen-driven mechanisms.