Role of veterinary practices in encouraging use of microchip and visual identification methods

Patricia Dingman and others, University of Florida, Gainesville

Two million dogs and 2.6 million cats are lost from their homes in the US each year Pet owners can improve the chances of being reunited with their animal by using both visual identification (in the form of a collar and identity tag) and a permanent microchip. The authors investigated the attitudes of 1086 veterinary clinics in the south-eastern region of the US towards promoting these services to their clients. Their online survey found that 91% of the clinics which responded offered microchip implants and scanning, although only 41% used ‘global' scanners capable of detecting all currently available microchip brands. More clinics relied on the pet owners to register contact information with the database than provided this as a service to their clients. Although lost dogs are more commonly returned to their owners than lost cats, both microchips and collars were recommended more often by practices for all dogs (85 and 93%, respectively) than for all cats (67 and 61%). Only half of clinics that recommended identification collars made them available to their clients. The authors suggest that veterinary staff should include both forms of pet identification in their preventive healthcare advice.

The Veterinary Journal 201(1), 46-50

Negative pressure wound therapy in treating two cases of canine necrotising fasciitis

Patrick Maguire and others, New York Veterinary Specialty Center, Farmingdale, New York

Necrotising fasciitis is a rare, life threatening bacterial infection arising in the fascial and subcutaneous tissues. Negative pressure wound therapy has been used in the management of human patients with this condition but there have been no previous reports of it being applied in dogs. The authors describe two cases, in a five-month-old Akita and a 1-year-old German shorthaired pointer, which presented with oedema, erythema and pain, and in both cases beta-haemolytic Streptococcus was isolated from the wound site. Negative pressure therapy systems providing 120mm Hg continuous pressure were applied for five and four days, respectively. Both infections successfully resolved without recourse to amputation of the affected limbs.

Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 51(1), 43-48

Quality of Life assessments in guiding decision making in feline and canine oncology cases

Michelle Giuffrida and Shannon Kerrigan, University of Philadelphia

Quality of Life is recognised as an important factor in clinical trials of cancer treatments in humans, with improvements in subjective QoL considered to be valuable, even in the absence of significant changes in disease progression. The authors investigated the methodologies used for QoL assessments in published trials involving cats and dogs with oncological disease. Attempts to measure QoL were made in only 16 out of 144 eligible studies and only eight studies reported the results. Moreover in only one study was the methodology described in sufficient detail for the measurements to be repeated in another So currently, QoL of veterinary cancer patients is largely unreported and cannot be meaningfully compared.

Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine 28(6), 1824-1829

Protein-to-creatinine ratios in feline urine collected using different sampling techniques

Hugo Vilhena and others, Vasco da Gama College, Coimbra, Portugal

Persistent proteinuria is recognised as an important diagnostic and prognostic marker of chronic kidney disease in cats. Samples for urine albumin-to-creatinine concentration ratio analysis are usually taken by cystocentesis, but this procedure does carry risks, especially in patients with coagulopathies. The authors compared the results of urine analysis using cystocentesis with those from samples collected by manual compression of the cat's bladder They found that urine collected during the midstream phase of micturition using manual compression produced comparable results on UPC analysis to that produced by cystocentesis, provided that postrenal proteinuria is excluded by means of urine sediment analysis.

Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 246(8), 862-867

Surgical site infection surveillance in dogs

Ryen Turk and others, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Postoperative wound infections are an inherent risk of any surgical procedure with potentially serious consequences in terms of morbidity and mortality hospitalisation time and treatment costs. The authors investigated the prevalence and risk factors for surgical site infections in a prospective study involving 846 dogs treated at a university hospital over a nine-month period. Follow up telephone conversations with the owner 30 days postoperatively found that 25 (3%) had site infections of varying severity of which only 17 cases were documented in the medical records. Risk factors for such infections included animals experiencing hypotension, the use of an implant and the type of operation performed.

Veterinary Surgery 44(1), 2-8

Multi-organ dysfunction secondary to joint supplement overdose in a dog

Irma Nobles and Safdar Khan, BluePearl Veterinary Services, Tampa, Florida

Supplements containing glucosamine and chondroitin are commonly used as part of the treatment for degenerative joint disease in human and animal patients. Such products are generally assumed to be safe, although hepatoxicity has been recorded with excessive doses. The authors describe a case of multi-organ effects, involving coagulopathy, pancreatitis, and acute kidney injury The patient was a five-year-old female Bernese mountain dog which presented with vomiting and melaena after ingesting approximately 200 tablets. The dog was euthanased and post mortem examination revealed myocardial necrosis, pneumonia, centrilobular haemorrhage and necrosis of the liver vasculitis and acute tubular necrosis.

Canadian Veterinary Journal 56(4), 361-364

DOI: 10.1080/17415349.2015,1060876 

Veterinary Nursing Journal • VOL 30 • September 2015 •