Why We Continue HCM Testing Bengal Cats Into Older Ages

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) cannot be ruled out by one normal heart scan. Because HCM can develop as a cat ages, responsible Bengal breeding requires repeated echocardiograms over time—not simply one test when a breeding cat is young.

At Quality Bengal Kittens, our breeding cats are screened by a board-certified veterinary cardiologist approximately every 12 to 18 months. We have been heart testing since 2004, and we continue screening important cats into older ages, including cats that are no longer breeding. This gives us generations of heart-health information rather than a single result from one point in a cat’s life.

One of the benefits of purchasing a pedigree pet is a known health history.  Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) affects one in seven domestic cats.  Pedigree cat breeders can reduce these odds IF they do their part.

What should pedigree breeders be doing to reduce the risk of HCM and other heart diseases?
They should be testing their breeding cats with an echocardiogram performed by a Board Certified Cardiologist every 12 to 18 months until the breeding cat is over the age of five years old, preferably until the cat is eight years old or older.

While the first test on a breeding cat is done at around one-year-old, heart testing needs to be repeated.  Many forms of heart disease, including HCM, are progressive. Cats may not exhibit the first signs of it until they are 4-6 years old, occasionally even later.  If a breeder is only testing their cats until they are four years old, they may never see the first signs of heart disease.  

What makes Quality Bengal Kittens different?
At Quality Bengal Kittens, we have been testing our cats’ hearts since 2004. This does not mean we can guarantee none of our cats will develop heart disease, but we are reducing the likelihood of that happening.  Below you will find a list of cats in our breeding program that we have tested to over age five and a list of cats we have tested to over age 8.  How long we test a cat is typically dependent upon how many offspring the cat has contributed to the breeding population of Bengals. You can check your cat’s pedigree to see how many of the cats listed below are in the pedigree.  We are working towards building pedigrees that have multiple generations of cats whose hearts were tested to older ages.  If a cat is not listed on this list, that does not mean it tested positive.  Cats not on this list may be: under five years old, retired without producing many kittens, or have parents who were tested to age eight or older. 

For a more detailed explanation of why it is important to get multiple tests to older ages, please read Why we HCM Test Our Cats for so Many Years.

FAQ on HCM in Bengal Cats

What Is HCM in Bengal Cats?

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, commonly called HCM, is a disease in which the muscular walls of the heart become abnormally thick. As the heart muscle thickens, the chambers of the heart become smaller and the heart has to work harder to move blood through the body. One of the difficulties with HCM is that a cat can appear completely healthy while the disease is developing. A veterinarian may not hear a murmur, the cat may be active and playful, and there may be no obvious reason to suspect there is a problem. This is why breeders cannot rely on appearance, behavior, or a routine veterinary exam to determine whether a breeding cat has a healthy heart.

HCM is particularly important in a breeding program because the goal is not simply to know whether one cat is healthy today. A breeder is making decisions that affect future generations. The more information we have about the heart health of the cats behind a pedigree, the better decisions we can make about which cats should be bred together.

How Is a Bengal Cat Tested for HCM?

The most useful way to evaluate a cat for HCM is with an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of the heart. The ultrasound allows the cardiologist to measure the thickness of the heart walls, evaluate the size and function of the chambers, and look for changes that may indicate developing heart disease.

We have our cats examined by a veterinary cardiologist because interpreting an echocardiogram requires more than simply taking measurements. A cardiologist spends a career looking at hearts and learning to recognize changes that may be significant. This becomes even more valuable when the same cardiologist has followed a family of cats over many years because the cardiologist is not looking at one isolated test. There is a history behind the cat.

A routine veterinary examination is still important, but listening to the heart with a stethoscope is not the same as examining the heart with an ultrasound. A cat can have HCM without an obvious murmur, which is why we do not consider a normal physical exam a substitute for an echocardiogram.

How Often Should Bengal Cats Be Screened for HCM?

One of the most important things to understand about HCM testing is that an echocardiogram tells you what the cat’s heart looks like at that point in time. It does not guarantee that the cat will never develop HCM. Because HCM can develop as a cat ages, repeatedly screening breeding cats gives us considerably more information than testing a young cat once and never looking at its heart again.

We generally screen our breeding cats about every 12 to 18 months. As the cats get older, those repeated normal scans become increasingly valuable. A normal scan at one year old is good information. A normal scan on the same cat at three, five, seven, or eight years old gives us a much better understanding of that cat’s long-term heart health.

This is also why I pay attention to the age of a cat at its most recent scan when I look at pedigrees. Simply seeing that a cat was “HCM normal” does not tell me enough. I want to know when the test was done and how old the cat was at the time.

Why One Normal HCM Scan Is Not Enough

If a cat receives a normal heart scan at one year old and is never tested again, we know that the cat’s heart was normal at one year old. We do not know what happened to that heart at three, five, seven, or ten years old. That distinction matters when the cat has been used for breeding and its descendants continue to be used in a breeding program.

This is why I do not consider one normal scan to be a complete health history. It is useful information, but it is only one piece of information. The purpose of repeated testing is to continue adding information over time. The longer a cat remains normal, the more confidence we have in the heart health behind that particular line.

There is no health test that can guarantee that HCM will never appear. Breeding does not work that way. What responsible breeders can do is gather as much information as possible and use that information when making breeding decisions.

Why the Age of the Cat at Its Last HCM Test Matters

When I look at HCM information on a pedigree, the age of the cat at the time of the test matters almost as much to me as the result. A normal heart scan on a twelve-month-old breeding cat is certainly something I want to see, but a normal heart scan on that cat when it is six, eight, or ten years old tells me considerably more.

This becomes especially important when evaluating the generations behind a young breeding cat. If I can see that the parents, grandparents, and other close relatives remained normal into older ages, I have much more information than I would have from a pedigree filled with cats that were only tested when they were young.

Older normal cats are valuable to a breeding program even when they are no longer producing kittens because they continue to tell us something about the genetics being passed through the family.

Why Testing Retired Breeding Cats Matters

It would be easy to stop testing a cat once it retires from breeding. From a very narrow perspective, there is no longer a breeding decision to make about that individual cat. However, the cat may have children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren still being used in the breeding program. What happens to the retired cat’s heart as it ages can provide valuable information about all of those descendants.

This is why we have continued to screen selected cats after their breeding careers have ended. If a cat remains HCM normal at seven, eight, nine, or ten years old, that information becomes part of what we know about the entire family. If a problem develops later in life, that information is equally important because it may influence future breeding decisions.

The cat may be retired from breeding, but the genetics it contributed to the breeding program continue for generations.

Why Multigenerational HCM Testing Is More Valuable

No breeding cat exists in isolation. Every cat comes from a family, and every kitten produced carries genetics from generations of cats behind it. This is why I believe health testing is most useful when breeders look beyond the current sire and dam and pay attention to the health of the larger family.

A young breeding cat with a normal heart scan is encouraging. A young breeding cat whose parents have remained normal as they aged gives us more information. When grandparents, great-grandparents, siblings, half-siblings, and other relatives have also been followed over time, we begin to develop a much clearer picture of the health of the line.

This is one of the reasons our long history of heart testing is so important to us. We are not simply collecting normal test results. We are following families. Over time, that allows us to make breeding decisions based on generations of health information rather than one normal test on the cat standing in front of us.

Our Bengal HCM Testing History Since 2004

We began routinely heart testing our Bengals in 2004. More than twenty years later, the value of that testing is not simply that we can say we have been doing it for a long time. The value is in the history we have accumulated on the cats and families behind our current breeding program.

Many of our cats have been screened repeatedly throughout their breeding careers, and some have continued to be screened after retirement. As the years passed, our cardiologist was able to examine not only individual cats but their relatives and descendants. This has given us information about families that cannot be obtained from a single generation of testing.

When we talk about our HCM testing legacy, this is what we mean. The goal has never been to collect one normal result so that we can say a cat was tested. The goal is to learn as much as possible about the long-term heart health behind the kittens we produce.

Questions to Ask a Bengal Breeder About HCM Testing

People looking for a Bengal kitten are often told to ask whether the breeder HCM tests. That is a good place to start, but it is no longer enough. Two breeders can both honestly say that they HCM test while having very different testing programs.

I would ask who performs the echocardiograms, how often the breeding cats are screened, how old the parents were at their most recent normal scans, and whether any cats are followed after they retire from breeding. I would also ask about the generations behind the parents. How old were the grandparents at their last normal scans? Are there older normal relatives in the pedigree? Does the breeder know what happened to siblings, half-siblings, and other close family members as they aged?

These questions tell you considerably more than simply asking whether a breeder tests for HCM. You are not only purchasing the kitten sitting in front of you. You are purchasing the genetics of all of the cats behind that kitten. A breeder who has followed those families for generations has information that cannot be replaced by one normal scan on a young parent.