Diagnostic use of cardiac biomarkers and echocardiography in canine dilated cardiomyopathy

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a well-recognized cause of heart failure in dogs and often act silent killers. Diagnosis with use of ECG and Echocardiography is not a routine in India except at few institutes. This is the first report from Gujarat (India) on diagnostic use of cardiac biomarkers and echocardiography in canine dilated cardiomyopathy in dogs. The study included 9 healthy dogs and 56 confirmed cases of DCM out of which 18 cases were randomly selected for the detailed study. DCM affected dogs showed history and clinical signs of exercise intolerance, dyspnoea, coughing, inappetence, weight loss, abdominal enlargement, vomiting and syncope. The typical clinical features of DCM cases were tachycardia, murmur, pulmonary oedema and muffled heart sound. The heart rate, pulse rate and respiration rate of DCM affected dogs were significantly higher than healthy group with no change in rectal temperature of both groups. The average diastolic blood pressure in DCM group was significantly higher than healthy group. Important ECG findings noticed in DCM group were atrial fibrillation (38.89%), sinus tachycardia (33.33%), ventricular premature complex (16.67%), normal sinus arrhythmia (5.56%) and atrial flutter (5.56%). Significant increased LA/Ao ratio and EPSS along with lowed EF and FS on echocardiography confirmed the cases of DCM. Further, the biomarkers: NT-pro BNP, cTn-I and CPK-MB were found elevated in DCM group than healthy group. Results suggests that dilated cardiomyopathy being the most commonly observed acquired heart disease in middle aged dogs requires awareness in owners for regular checkup to diagnose cases in earlier so that follow-up treatment can be helpful for enhancement of lifespan of affected dogs.