Prospective randomized trial comparing relapse rates in dogs with steroid-responsive meningitis-arteritis treated with a 6-week or 6-month prednisolone protocol.

BACKGROUND: Traditionally, 6-month courses of prednisolone are used to treat steroid-responsive meningitis-arteritis (SRMA), but this medication is associated with adverse effects that can lead to poor quality of life. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES: Resolution of clinical signs and rate of relapse of SRMA would not be significantly different between a 6-month prednisolone protocol and a 6-week protocol. ANIMALS: Forty-four hospital cases from multiple referral centers in the United Kingdom (2015-2019). Twenty of 44 were treated with the 6-month protocol and 24/44 with the 6-week protocol. METHODS: Prospective, randomized trial with 12-month follow-up. The same prednisolone protocol reinitiated in the event of relapse. Analysis of relapses with binary logistic and Poisson regression modeling. RESULTS: All cases responded to their treatment protocol. Relapses occurred in 6/20 (30%) of the 6-month protocol and 9/24 (38%) of the 6-week protocol. There was no statistical difference in the incidence risk of at least 1 relapse between the 2 groups (odds ratio = 1.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.40-4.96, P = 0.60). Among the 15 dogs that relapsed, 10/15 (67%) relapsed once, 3/15 (20%) relapsed twice, and 2/15 (13%) relapsed 3 times. No statistical difference was detected in the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of total relapse events between the 2 groups (IRR = 1.46; 95% CI, 0.61-3.48; P = 0.40). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: "Short" 6-week prednisolone protocols could be used to treat SRMA, thereby presumably reducing the duration and severity of prednisolone's adverse effects.

Low frequency of pre-treatment and post-treatment haematological abnormalities in dogs with non-infectious meningoencephalitis treated with cytosine arabinoside and prednisolone.

BACKGROUND: Cytosine arabinoside (CA) and prednisolone are drugs commonly used together in the management of canine non-infectious meningoencephalitis (NIME). The aim of this study was to report the haematological findings before and after CA and prednisolone treatment and identify any adverse haematological events in this clinical setting, following the veterinary cooperative oncology group established common terminology criteria for recording adverse events following administration of chemotherapy or biological antineoplastic therapy. RESULTS: While 48 patients with a presumptive diagnosis of NIME had pretreatment haematology results, only 12 patients met the inclusion criteria of also having post-treatment haematology results available for review after being treated with prednisolone and CA at a standard dose (200 mg/m2) in a single referral hospital in the UK. Forty-nine post-treatment haematology results were available for these 12 patients. CONCLUSIONS: Four adverse haematological events were identified in four patients. None of these events were convincingly attributable to CA administration.

Effectiveness of manual bladder expression in paraplegic dogs.

OBJECTIVE To determine the effectiveness of manual bladder expression in paraplegic dogs by comparing urine volumes measured by use of intermittent catheterization and ultrasonography. ANIMALS 36 paraplegic dogs. PROCEDURES 93 measurements of bladder volume were collected for the 36 dogs. Residual urine volume was determined by use of intermittent urethral catheterization and estimated by use of ultrasonography. RESULTS Manual bladder expression voided a mean of 49% of urine from the bladder in this population of dogs. There was no correlation (R2, 0.06) between the effectiveness of manual bladder expression and body weight. Ultrasonographic estimation of bladder volume had good correlation (R2, 0.62) with bladder volume determined by use of intermittent bladder catheterization, but clinically unacceptable variation for predicting actual bladder volume (mean difference, 22 mL; 95% confidence interval, -96 to 139 mL). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Manual bladder expression was ineffective at completely emptying urine from the bladder of paraplegic dogs, but the effectiveness of the procedure was not affected by body weight. Manual bladder expression would likely be a useful procedure to prevent increases in pressure within the bladder. Ultrasonographic estimation of bladder volume could be a useful predictor of actual bladder volume, but it was susceptible to wide variations among dogs, and results should therefore be interpreted with caution.