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Results of UK breed health survey

Karlin

Karlin

Administrator
Staff member
This lists causes of death -- number of dogs, and percentage of the sample. Note this is a totally unscientific sample -- it is whoever returned questionnaires to the UK Kennel Club, which gathered forms through the individual breed clubs.

Table 1. Causes of death by organ system/category for Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

Cause of death N % Most common specific causes in descending order

1 Cardiac 292 42.8 Heart failure; MVD; heart disease unspecified

2 Cancer 84 12.3 Unspecified; throat (type unspecified); brain tumour

3 Old age 83 12.2 Old age

4 Combinations 43 6.3

5 Urologic 31 4.5 Kidney failure; proliferative glomerulopathy; amyloidosis

6 Cerebral vascular 23 3.4 Stroke or cerebral vascular accident

7 Neurologic 19 2.8 Seizures; syringomyelia; IVDD

8 Hepatic 15 2.2 Liver failure chronic; unspecified

9 Other 15 2.2 Weakness or paresis

10 Unknown 15 2.2

11 Reproductive 9 1.3 Pyometra; eclampsia

12 Gastrointestinal 6 0.9 Pancreatitis; colitis; haemorrhagic diarrhoea

13 Sudden death 6 0.9

14 Trauma 6 0.9 Road traffic accident

15 Immune mediated 5 0.7 Unspecified; haemolytic anaemia

16 Collapse 4 0.6

17 Endocrine 4 0.6 Cushings; Addisons

18 Perioperative 4 0.6

19 Respiratory 3 0.4 Choked; respiratory failure; unspecified

20 Senility 3 0.4

21 Portosystemic shunt (PSS) 2 0.3

22 Musculoskeletal 2 0.3 Arthritis

23 Septicaemia 2 0.3

24 Systemic 2 0.3 Allergy to insect bite or sting or snake bite

25 Cardiovascular 1 0.1 Unspecified

26 Infection 1 0.1

27 Ocular 1 0.1 Blindness

28 Poisoning 1 0.1

Total 682 100.0
Click to expand...
 
wow. almost half from MVD. Not many from trauma. Mostly illness. Interesting. Even considering it's not scientific, it gives quite an impression.

What actually is the cause of death from SM usually? Seizure? Or are dogs pts before they die of the illness usually? I've done some reading about the disease with this question in mind and didn't easily find that information.
 
Some have seizures, but mainly it would be that they are living with extreme pain and are pts. If a neurologist never examined the dog people might think the dog died from any range of things -- few people would have MRId to confirm a diagnosis of SM. Also the syrinxes seem to collapse and this vanish at death so aren't seen on postmortems if one is performed.

The deadline for handing these in was 2004 -- which was a point at which people were only just learning about SM in the breed. Interestingly I understand CKCS were the only breed that had a separate choice of SM as cause of death.

This listing only reflects a known cause of death, not a level of illness or disability, as it doesn't give a reflection of breed health issues, only what the breed has died from. It is a shockingly high level of death from MVD still. It would be useful to see age breakdowsn and so on.
 
Thanks for sharing this Karlin...I'm glad the results are finally out.

I did actually complete the forms for my own Cavaliers at the time.

Although Syringomyelia is shown in the results, it wasn't actually listed on the form...you had to put it in yourself...so I think this would affect the reporting too.
 
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