Introduction

In people, the higher the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), the higher the mortality rate in hospitalized patients. In dogs, clinical application of ESR has been abandoned due to long processing time and discovery of new acute-phase proteins.

However, a new rapid ESR method has been recently released and validated in dogs. Clinical application of ESR in canine emergency medicine has not been evaluated yet. We aimed to evaluate ESR in hospitalized dogs at admission (T0) and during hospitalization for 48 hours to observe its trend and to relate ESR with mortality.

Methods

Prospective study on hospitalized dogs at University of Pisa Veterinary Teaching Hospital between September 2021 and February 2022. Only hospitalized dogs with CBCs performed for their routine monitoring were included, and left-over blood collected for routine CBCs was used. Each owner signed an informed consent to use left-over samples for research. Dogs had a full clinical evaluation, complete hematobiochemical profile and diagnostic workup necessary to a final diagnosis. ESR was performed using MINI-PET, an automatic continuous-loading instrument, according to the manufacturer’s instructions using fresh blood collected in 1 mL K3-EDTA tubes. The ESR was evaluated at admission (T0), and after approximately 24 and 48 hours (T1 and T2, respectively), based on clinicians’ decision. Dogs were divided into survivors and non-survivors according to their short-term outcome (48 h). T0 ESR between survivor and non-survivors was compared using Mann-Whitney U-test and T0-T1-T2 ESR in survivors and non-survivors were compared using Friedman test with pairwise comparisons.

Results

Twenty hospitalized dogs were prospectively included. Ten dogs died within 48 hours from admission and the other ten survived. T0 ESR was not significantly different between survivors and non-survivors (median 15.5 vs. 17.5 mm/h; p=0.9). Non-survivors showed a significant increase in ESR from T0 to T1, and from T1 to T2 (p<0.001; medians T0 17.5, T1 39.5 and T2 46 mm/h, respectively), whereas survivors showed a significant decrease from T0 to T2 (medians T0 15.5 and T2 4.5 mm/h, respectively).

Conclusions

Although ESR at admission did not predict mortality of hospitalized dogs, its monitoring during hospitalization may add prognostic information.

E-mail: eleonora.gori@vet.unipi.it