Approaches to canine health surveillance

Effective canine health surveillance systems can be used to monitor disease in the general population, prioritise disorders for strategic control and focus clinical research, and to evaluate the success of these measures. The key attributes for optimal data collection systems that support canine disease surveillance are representativeness of the general population, validity of disorder data and sustainability. Limitations in these areas present as selection bias, misclassification bias and discontinuation of the system respectively. Canine health data sources are reviewed to identify their strengths and weaknesses for supporting effective canine health surveillance. Insurance data benefit from large and well-defined denominator populations but are limited by selection bias relating to the clinical events claimed and animals covered. Veterinary referral clinical data offer good reliability for diagnoses but are limited by referral bias for the disorders and animals included. Primary-care practice data have the advantage of excellent representation of the general dog population and recording at the point of care by veterinary professionals but may encounter misclassification problems and technical difficulties related to management and analysis of large datasets. Questionnaire surveys offer speed and low cost but may suffer from low response rates, poor data validation, recall bias and ill-defined denominator population information. Canine health scheme data benefit from well-characterised disorder and animal data but reflect selection bias during the voluntary submissions process. Formal UK passive surveillance systems are limited by chronic under-reporting and selection bias. It is concluded that active collection systems using secondary health data provide the optimal resource for canine health surveillance

Longevity and mortality of owned dogs in England

Improved understanding of longevity represents a significant welfare opportunity for the domestic dog, given its unparalleled morphological diversity. Epidemiological research using electronic patient records (EPRs) collected from primary veterinary practices overcomes many inherent limitations of referral clinic, owner questionnaire and pet insurance data. Clinical health data from 102,609 owned dogs attending first opinion veterinary practices (n = 86) in central and southeast England were analysed, focusing on 5095 confirmed deaths. Of deceased dogs with information available, 3961 (77.9%) were purebred, 2386 (47.0%) were female, 2528 (49.8%) were neutered and 1105 (21.7%) were insured. The overall median longevity was 12.0 years (IQR 8.9–14.2). The longest-lived breeds were the Miniature poodle, Bearded collie, Border collie and Miniature dachshund, while the shortest-lived were the Dogue de Bordeaux and Great Dane. The most frequently attributed causes of death were neoplastic, musculoskeletal and neurological disorders. The results of multivariable modelling indicated that longevity in crossbred dogs exceeded purebred dogs by 1.2 years (95% confidence interval 0.9–1.4; P < 0.001) and that increasing bodyweight was negatively correlated with longevity. The current findings highlight major breed differences for longevity and support the concept of hybrid vigour in dogs

The cost of systemic corticosteroid-induced morbidity in severe asthma : a health economic analysis

The study data-set was supported by the Respiratory Effectiveness Group through their academic partnership with Optimum Patient Care. Ciaran O'Neill was funded under a HRB Research Leader Award (RL/13/16).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Prevalence of disorders recorded in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels attending primary-care veterinary practices in England

Concerns have been raised over breed-related health issues in purebred dogs, but reliable prevalence estimates for disorders within specific breeds are sparse. Electronically stored patient health records from primary-care practice are emerging as a useful source of epidemiological data in companion animals. This study used large volumes of health data from UK primary-care practices participating in the VetCompass animal health surveillance project to evaluate in detail the disorders diagnosed in a random selection of over 50% of dogs recorded as Cavalier King Charles Spaniels (CKCSs). Confirmation of breed using available microchip and Kennel Club (KC) registration data was attempted