So hello and welcome to this Small Animal Clinical podcast, brought to you from the Royal Veterinary College in London.

My name is Shailen Jassani.

So today it's my great pleasure to welcome Nicola Kalendra.

Nicola is a diplomats of the European College of Veterinary Surgery,

and she's currently working on the Soft Tissue Surgery Service at the RVC's Queen Mother Hospital for Animals.

So thanks very much, Nicola, for joining me today.

So Nicola, today we're going to talk about something that you actually suggested as a topic to me,

which is ureteric obstruction in cats.

Now, I should say at this point that actually I spent a long time trying to decide if we're going to call it ureteric or urethral,

and I wasn't really sure where the upshot of that was, so we're going to call it ureteric.

And just to be clear for the listeners, most people will be more familiar with the problem of urethral obstruction in tomcats, or so-called blockcats.

But today we're actually talking about

obstructed ureters. And I should also say that there will definitely be a podcast on blocked

urethra's at some point in the future. So, Nicolam, one of the reasons that you suggested

doing a podcast on this topic, I think, was that not just us here, but other referral centres also

seem to be seeing more cats with obstructed ureters.

Is that right?

Yes, absolutely.

Eurotoric obstruction has emerged as an increasing problem in clinical practice.

And do you think that this is because it's actually a problem that's happening more often,

or do you think it's sort of that v actually a problem that's happening more often?

Or do you think it's sort of that vets in practice are now more kind of aware of it and are therefore picking it up more?

...