Quantification of Mitral Regurgitation in
Anatolian Shepherd Dogs with Asymptomatic Degenerative Mitral Valve
Disease
Kursad Turgut1*,
Yilmaz Koc2, Hasan Guzelbektes1,3, Amir Naseri1,
Mehmet Ege Ince1 and Ismail Sen1
1Selcuk University, Faculty of Veterinary
Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine; 2Department of
Surgery, Konya/Turkey; 3Kyrgyz Turk Manas University,
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine,
Bishkek/Kyrgyzstan
*Corresponding author:kturgut@selcuk.edu.tr
Abstract
Degenerative mitral valvular disease (DMVD) is
the most frequent cardiac disease, causing mitral regurgitation (MR) in dogs. The purpose of this study was to compare the ratio of
the regurgitant jet area (RJA) to the left atrial
area (LAA) (RJA/LAA) with subtracting method to quantify regurgitant
volume (RegV) and regurgitant fraction (RF) in asymptomatic Anatolian Shepherd
Dogs (ASHs) with DMVD. Thirty-eight ASHs with DMVD were used as experimental
group. The control group consisted of 35 healthy ASHs. In 38 ASHs with DMVD (20
B1 dogs and 18 B2 dogs), the severity of MR was assessed by RJA/LAA and
subtraction method. No differences were noted between the assays
measuring the severity of MR by χ2 analysis. The observed agreement between the
assays was 81% for RJA/LAA vs RegV and
was 73% for RJA/LAA vs RF,
and the kappa statistic values for
RJA/LAA vs RegV and for RJA/LAA
vs RF were 0.63 (substantial agreement) and 0.50 (moderate agreement),
respectively. Our results indicate that each quantification
method was valuable to estimate the acuteness of the disease in ASHs with MR and
all were in good accordance with the echocardiographic heart size and N-terminal
Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) measurements. Therefore, the each of these
non-invasive methods may be functional to serially estimate the acuteness of MR
in DMVD in order to monitor the progression of disease. Future studies have to
evaluate, if these will be useful to anticipate the risk or time of
decompensation in asymptomatic dogs.