This article is the latest information in exciting research that looks like it is finally cracking the mystery of gastric dilatation-volvulus (gastric torsion/bloat), at least in Great Danes.
Research
If someone you know who has had a dog that bled or a first-degree relative of a dog that bled, and fibrinolysis was suspected (as opposed to Factor VII), please send them this blog post so they can be included. We are really having a hard time finding samples from affected dogs, so we need everyone to spread the word!
An article co-written by SDCA Health and Genetics Chair John Dillberger, DVM PhD, has just been published in Canine Genetics and Epidemiology. Entitled “Osteosarcoma Inheritance in Two Families of Scottish Deerhounds,” you can read the entire article here, or here is the plain English summary:
The Health & Genetics Committee is very excited to announce a new osteosarcoma project!
This project undertakes the very important task of seeing whether Deerhounds have any of the mutations found to date in two close relatives, the Greyhound and Irish Wolfhound, as well as Rottweilers, and lays the groundwork for future studies.
This study solicited feedback from Deerhound breeders and owners in a search for answers and commonalities that could direct future research into etiology, diagnosis and treatment of neck pain in Scottish Deerhounds.
Last year, we published a post on a promising new procedure, Percutaneous Transvenous Coil Embolization (PTCE) for the repair of liver shunts. The first scientific paper has come out on this procedure, and Dr. Cassie Lux, Assistant Professor of Surgery at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Tennessee, very generously wrote up for us how the procedure works:
Below are 11 selected journal article abstracts on bloat/GDV, gleaned from the last few years of published articles, that might be of interest. Many, many thanks to Corinne Dulberg for compiling this.
Here are two interesting scientific articles on cystinuria from the researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who are researching this disease in Deerhounds.
Here is the slide presentation from the health seminar on osteosarcoma at the 2015 National Specialty.
Dr. Michael Court still needs samples for his slow drug metabolism and hyperthermia studies.