Parasites and Vectors Open Access
\nVolume 10, Issue 1, 28 February 2017, Article number 106<\/p>\n
Serrano-Parre\u00f1o, B., Carret\u00f3n, E., Caro-Vadillo, A., Falc\u00f3n-Cord\u00f3n, Y., Falc\u00f3n-Cord\u00f3n, S., Montoya-Alonso, J.A.<\/p>\n
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Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a frequent and severe phenomenon in<\/span> heartworm disease caused by Dirofilaria immitis, mainly caused by intimal proliferation of the arteries and pulmonary thromboembolisms. Transthoracic echocardiography is the method of choice for diagnosing PH in<\/span> dogs although the diagnosis is often based on indirect and subjective parameters. The Right Pulmonary Artery Distensibility Index (RPAD Index) is a method that has been recently validated to estimate the presence and severity of PH in<\/span> heartworm–<\/span>infected dogs. This study compared some echocardiographic parameters commonly used to estimate PH in<\/span> 93 dogs infected by D. immitis and evaluated the impact of the parasite burden, microfilaremia, sex or origin of the dog (client–<\/span>owned\/shelter). Results: None of the studied echocardiographic variables seemed useful in<\/span> the estimation of the evaluated clinical aspects, except for the PA\/Ao ratio for parasite burden. The RPAD Index was determined in<\/span> 88 of the dogs; of these, 70. 4% had PH (mild: 37.5%, moderate: 19.3%, severe: 13.6%). This Index showed non–<\/span>significant differences according to microfilaremia, sex, origin or parasite burden. Symptomatic dogs showed PH more often and displayed more severe PH, in<\/span> addition the presence of symptoms was greater among dogs with high burden; on the other hand 64.4% of asymptomatic dogs had some degree of PH according to the RPAD Index. Apart from the PA\/Ao ratio, the other evaluated echocardiographic variables were not useful in<\/span> evaluating of the hypertensive status of the heartworminfected dog compared to the RPAD Index. Conclusions: The estimation of most common indirect parameters is not useful in<\/span> predicting PH in<\/span> heartworminfected dogs. The results confirm the RPAD Index as an objective and supportive test in<\/span> the monitoring and evaluation<\/span> of PH in<\/span> the heartworm–<\/span>infected dog, and show a potential diagnostic value for the detection of PH in<\/span> asymptomatic animals.<\/p>\nArticulo<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parasites and Vectors Open Access Volume 10, Issue 1, 28 February 2017, Article number 106 Serrano-Parre\u00f1o, B., Carret\u00f3n, E., Caro-Vadillo, A., Falc\u00f3n-Cord\u00f3n, Y., Falc\u00f3n-Cord\u00f3n, S., Montoya-Alonso, J.A. Abstract Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a frequent and severe phenomenon in heartworm disease caused by Dirofilaria immitis, mainly caused by intimal proliferation of the arteries and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":642,"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions\/642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicinaveterinaria.ulpgc.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}