Risk factors for reluxation after toggle rod stabilization for treatment of coxofemoral luxation in 128 dogs.

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the risk factors for reluxation and outcomes for dogs with a toggle rod construct. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective case series. ANIMALS: One hundred twenty-eight client-owned dogs. METHODS: Medical records from 2007 to 2018 were reviewed for signalment, history, surgery, and outcome for dogs with a coxofemoral luxation repaired with a commercial toggle rod and nylon monofilament suture construct. Univariate and multiple logistics regression analysis were performed to assess risk factors associated with postoperative luxation. Primary veterinarians and owners were contacted for follow-up via telephone or electronic communication. RESULTS: The overall complication rate was 24.2%, and the reluxation rate was 14.8%. There was a decreased risk of reluxation when the cause was traumatic in origin (odds ratio [OR] 0.10) or when the lameness was severe at presentation (OR 0.42). Fifteen of 58 (25.9%) owners contacted completed a follow-up survey. CONCLUSION: Dogs with nontraumatic, low impact luxations were at a higher risk for reluxation. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Dogs of any body condition with a traumatic coxofemoral luxation are at lowest risk for reluxation.

Methods of adjusted comparison of medians.

Consider the problem of making an adjusted comparison of the medians of two populations on an interval type outcome variable. A common method of doing this is through the use of a linear model requiring the residuals to be normally distributed. We describe here two methods based on a linear model after Box-Cox transformation of the outcome variable. The methods require a reference population, which could be either of the populations under study or their aggregate. We compare the new procedures with the comparison of normal means procedure and other procedures proposed for this problem by simulation. It is found that the procedure based on comparison of the predicted values obtained from the observed covariates of the reference population has higher power for testing and smaller mean square error of estimation than the other methods, while maintaining reasonable control of the type I error rate. We illustrate the methods by analyzing the duration of the second stage of labor for women in two large observation studies (Collaborative Perinatal Project and Consortium on Safe Labor) separated by 50 years. We recommend the method based on comparison of the predicted values of the transformed outcomes, with careful attention to how close the resulting residual distribution is to normal.