Disseminated intravascular coagulopathy of the dog

Abstract

In the period between November 1995 and February 1997, a clinical study focused on disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC) in the dog was conducted. Two objectives were established. The first objective was a prospective study to find an occurrence of this syndrome in dog emergency medicine. During that period, 7506 dog patients had come to the department of surgery with various problems, but only 11 dogs were diagnosed with an acute DIC. Four of these dogs died and two more were euthanased later on, due to poor prognosis of underlying condition. The second objective was reevaluation of some haematological factors and their reliability for both diagnosis and prognosis. We confirmed that monitoring of some specific haemostatic parameters, namely thrombin clotting time (TCT), Antithrombin (AT) activity, platelet count (PC) and level of fibrin degradation products (FDP's) are crucial for both the diagnosis and prognosis quo ad vitam. We found that TCT and AT activity are factors highly reliable for prognosis and if both of them are out of limits 48 hours after beginning of the therapy, poor prognosis should be established.