Prevalence and risk of canine pyometra expressed in terms of age ratio

BLANCO PG; RUBE A; LÓPEZ MERLO M; BATISTA PR; LÓPEZ KNUDSEN I; VERCELLINI R; ARIZMENDI A; GOBELLO C

Venecia

Congreso; 21st EVSSAR Congress; 2018

EVSSAR

Although age has been widely proposed as a risk factor for bitches affected by pyometra, it may lead to potentially erroneous conclusions as chronological age represents unequal life spans in different breeds [1]. The aims of this study were to:1)To report pyometra prevalence in terms of percentage of life expectancy (age ratio) in female dogs submitted to the Ultrasonography Service of the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences of La Plata, Argentina.2)To report the prevalence of canine pyometra in different age ratio ranges. 3)To predict the risk of suffering from pyometra in bitches at different age ratios. 502 cross- and pure-bred bitches of different ages were clinically and ultrasonographically examined for signs of pyometra during 2012 and 2017 and classified as ill or healthy [2]. The chronological age of each bitch was transformed into its age ratio, defined as actual age/life expectancy*100 [3]. A binary logistic regression was conducted to predict the presence of pyometra using the age ratio as the predictor (SPSS 18.0; SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA). The prevalence of pyometra in this population of dogs was 25.09% (126/502 cases). This percentage increased from 11% to 39% at age ratios 0-10% (n=7) and 90-100% (n=33), respectively (P