Short colon in a cat

An 11-year-old male Japanese domestic cat was referred to the veterinary hospital with a chronic diarrhea and signs of pain and vocalization when defecating. The cat has discharged unformed feces throughout his life. Morphological diagnosis of short colon was made radiographically after barium enema. The ileocolic junction and cecum was located to the left of the midline at the proximal end of the descending colon. Additional endoscopic examination demonstrated the difference in visual structures of the mucosal surface and in histological structures on mucosal biopsy specimens, between the colon and ileum. This is the first report of short colon in a cat in Japan