Category: Gastro-Intestinal

CSU Veterinarians Seek Big Dogs to Undergo Stomach Surgery and Digestive Evaluation

FORT COLLINS – Colorado State University veterinarians want to learn about stomach function in large-breed dogs that have undergone laparoscopic gastropexy, a minimally invasive surgery in which the stomach is attached to the abdominal wall to prevent dangerous bloating.

To investigate, a veterinary team is launching a clinical study in big dogs – those weighing more than 80 pounds.

Gastric dilatation volvulus, when the stomach flips and expands, is both potentially fatal and fairly common in large-breed dogs, said Dr. Eric Monnet, a veterinarian in Soft Tissue Surgery Service at CSU’s James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
Continue reading CSU Veterinarians Seek Big Dogs to Undergo Stomach Surgery and Digestive Evaluation

Understanding canine bloat for better treatment

Assistant Professor Laura Nelson awarded grant by the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation to research causes of bloat in dogs.

Laura Nelson, assistant professor in the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences (SCS), has been awarded a 2-year, $233,774 grant to fund research on the causes of Gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV) in dogs. The grant was awarded by the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation (CHF) on October 4, 2013.

GDV, or bloat, is one of the leading causes of death in dogs, second only to cancer for some breeds, and the number one killer of Great Danes. Despite its prevalence, the cause of bloat is unknown. …

Nelson’s team is investigating the relationship of motility—contractions responsible for the digestion of food—with increased GDV risk, and hopes to define the biochemical and genetic alterations that may be associated with hypomotility—abnormally weak contractions. A new diagnostic tool, SmartPill®, makes possible noninvasive assessment of motility. The SmartPill® is an ingestible capsule with an instrument inside that measures acidity and pressure. The team will measure the time it takes the capsule to pass through the dog’s system and the pressure spikes along the way.

In addition to investigating gastric motility as a predictor of GDV, researchers will evaluate the expression of the hormones motilin and ghrelin—regulators of GI motility—as a predictor of predisposition to GDV. This information will support an investigation of the disease’s genetic foundations.
Nelson, the primary investigator of the project, is joined by a team of co-investigators from the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine: John C. Fyfe, DVM, PhD; Dr. Joe Hauptman, DVM, DACVS; Kent Refsal, DVM, PhD; William Horne, DVM, PhD, DACVA; Bryden J. Stanley, BSc, BVMS, MACVSc, MVetSc, DACVS; Michele Fritz, LVT; and James Galligan, PhD.

bloat in dogs: AVMA podcast

IBD & Legg-Calve Perthes Disease study

Medical News Today
Research Into IBD, LCPD In Westies May Contribute To Human Disease Research
19 Jul 2011

The Westie Foundation of America (WFA) has announced preliminary findings in two major studies involving the health of West Highland White Terriers also known as Westies. Findings in these and other studies of Westies and other dogs may hold answers for similar human conditions like Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). The studies are jointly funded by the WFA and the AKC Canine Health Foundation (CHF).
Continue reading IBD & Legg-Calve Perthes Disease study

Liver disease & Pancreatitis

Penny Watson [Penny Watson of the Cambridge Veterinary School and a European diplomate in internal medicine] Explores Liver Disease And Canine Pancreatitis, UK
Liver disease is one area where knowledge has advanced at a particularly rapid rate and has overturned many of the old certainties about the diagnosis and management of the condition.
Like all students of her 1980s generation, Dr Watson was told in her undergraduate course that steroids are a frontline treatment in the care of patients with chronic liver disease. Continue reading Liver disease & Pancreatitis

IBD : inflammatory bowel disease

Canine IBD, UK

When a dog turns up in their consulting room with chronic diarrhoea, vomiting and weight loss, then it is quite likely that the vet will call it a case of inflammatory bowel disease. But that is probably the only thing that they can say with any confidence after identifying one of the most enigmatic and frustrating conditions seen in small animal practice. Continue reading IBD : inflammatory bowel disease

Gastric Dilatation Volvulus (Bloat) update

Gary W. Ellison, DVM, MS, DACVS
University of Florida
Gastric dilatation Volvulus complex also know as bloat is a medical and surgical emergency which is know to primarily affect large and giant breeds of dogs. The disease has also been reported in smaller breeds such as the Pekingese and Dachshund. Mortality has been estimated as high as 30 percent. There are no reliable estimates of how many dogs develop bloat in the United States each year, but in certain breeds such as Irish Setters and Great Danes owners reported an incidence of seven and ten percent respectively. It does appear that purebred dogs are more likely to develop bloat than are mixed breed dogs. Continue reading Gastric Dilatation Volvulus (Bloat) update

Influence of barometric pressure on GDV (bloat)

Abstract:

Gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV) is a life-threatening condition in dogs and other species in which the stomach dilates and rotates on itself. The etiology of the disease is multi-factorial, but explicit precipitating causes are unknown. This study sought to determine if there was a significant association between changes in hourly-measured temperature and/or atmospheric pressure and the occurrence of GDV in the population of high-risk working dogs in Texas. The odds of a day being a GDV day, given certain temperature and atmospheric pressure conditions for that day or the day before, was estimated using logistic regression models. There were 57 days in which GDV(s) occurred, representing 2.60% of the days in the 6-year study period. The months of November, December, and January collectively accounted for almost half (47%) of all cases. Disease risk was negatively associated with daily maximum temperature. An increased risk of GDV was weakly associated with the occurrence of large hourly drops in temperature that day and of higher minimum barometric pressure that day and the day before GDV occurrence, but extreme changes were not
predictive of the disease.

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