Effect of long term release melatonin on feline puberty and estrous cycle.

M FAYA; A RISSO; M PRIOTTO; G ZURBRIGGEN ; D GRAIFF ; A CARRANZA ; C GOBELLO

Congreso; Encuentro Bianual del European Veterinary Small Animal Asociation; 2010

The aim of this study was to test the efficacy and safety of a long term release melatonin  formulation on feline estrous cycle and puberty postponing.  Two experiments were conducted. Postpubertal early interestrous females were randomly implanted melatonin (18 mg/cat sc; Melovine„¥, CEVA; ME, n = 12) or a sc placebo (PL, n = 12). In the 2nd study, eleven, 120¡Ó20 days old, 1.5 ¡Ó 0.2 kg, prepubertal queens were randomly assigned to the same ME (n=7) and PL (n=4) treatments.  In the 1st study, interestrous intervals in ME and PL groups were 83.7+14.2 vs. 22.7 + 3.1 days (p <0.01) respectively.  In the  2nd experiment,  neither age (218.6 +16.6 vs. 218.5 +46.8 days; (p>0.1) nor body weight (2.3 +0.2 vs. 2.3+0.4 (p > 0.1) differ between ME and PL groups, respectively.  None of  the cats  presented side effects.  It is concluded that, this melatonin formulation safely caused short term prolongation of the interestrous intervals but did not postpone puberty in domestic cats.