01/08/2024
Our team have been sharing this research with you since Dr Khan presented at ANZCVS Science Week 2022, and are excited to share it’s publication (free to read) in the link below 🤓
Over the past couple of years, some of you may have heard of the Cambridge Vet School non-surgical IVDD study. The results have just been published. It’s a great write-up and quite groundbreaking!
Dogs unable to walk due to disc extrusion (IVDD) were cared for WITHOUT surgery. They had an MRI scan at the start of the study and another MRI scan after 12 weeks. These scans helped to make the diagnosis, and they also showed how compressed (squashed) the spinal cord was in each case.
The big questions were:
❓How many of these dogs would start walking again without having had surgery?
❓How compressed was each dog’s spinal cord at the start of the study?
❓Were they still just as compressed at the end of the study, 12 weeks later?
Results were interesting and included the following:
✅Out of the dogs that had deep pain sensation, NEARLY ALL of them (49 of 51 dogs, 96%) started walking again within 12 weeks. Most of them walked much sooner than this.
✅Out of those with NO deep pain sensation, nearly half of them (10 of 21 dogs, 48%) started walking again within 12 weeks. That’s WITHOUT surgery.
✅Spinal cord compression reduced in some dogs over the 12 week study period. That’s despite not having had surgery to remove the disc material that caused this compression.
✅Many dogs started walking again despite the fact that their spinal cord was still compressed, ie ‘Recovery was not dependent on the resolution of compression’
💛The authors concluded that if spinal surgery isn’t possible as it’s not available in the area or is too expensive, non-surgical management is a valid alternative.
There’s plenty of detail in the write-up, and it’s free for all to read or download via this link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jvim.17149
Many thanks to Jep for this photo
