In a welcome move, the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) has just published a consensus statement providing guidance on the diagnosis, management, and treatment of the cat with cardiomyopathy. Even more encouraging is that nursing guidelines have also been included in this statement. The paper has been released as ‘open access’, so anyone can access these guidelines free of charge online. The consensus statement is important because it provides an updated classification of feline cardiomyopathies, changing emphasis to different phenotypic groups, and adds a staging system, along similar lines as the ACVIM myxomatous mitral valve disease consensus statement first published in 2009 and then updated in 2019. This article provides a summary of the key points made in the consensus statement.

Charlotte Pace -