Estudo Retrospectivo da Preval?ncia dos Achados Ultrassonogr?ficos Abdominais e da Qualidade de Vida em C?es e Gatos Idosos

• Autor(a) principal: Rocha, Mirella Lopes da
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRRJ
• Texto Completo: https://tede.ufrrj.br/jspui/handle/jspui/3669
• topic: Bem-estar animal; Geriatria; Ultrassonografia; Animal welfare; Geriatrics; Ultrasound; Medicina Veterin?ria

The feline and canine populations have increased their longevity in recent years due to a number of factors, such as: good food, comfort and care, prevention of major infectious diseases and increased efficiency of care veterinarian. With the evolution of veterinary medicine, diagnosis by ultrasonography has advanced. With this work aimed to: investigate which are the main ultrasound findings in abdominal organs of elderly dogs and cats and their respective prevalence through a retrospective study, and measure the perception of owners about the quality of life of their animals, through a questionnaire. We analyzed the data files from December 2010 to June 2011, the sector of abdominal ultrasonography in a private veterinary diagnostic center. We analyzed the reports of abdominal ultrasound examinations of dogs and cats over the age of 10 years. At the end of the evaluation of the material, we obtained the prevalence of each finding in each abdominal organ, by species, presented in percentage, for analysis and presentation of results. Questionnaire was also applied to owners of older dogs and cats to assess the perception of the owners about the quality of life of these animals. Score was assigned for each parameter evaluated according to the responses: (0) Bad (1) Regular, (2) Good. Animals with the greatest sum of points enjoyed better quality of life from the perspective of their owners. Of the 745 reports analyzed ultrasound, 625 (83.89%) were dogs, being 404 (64.64% of dogs) of females and 221 (35.36% of dogs) of males. The reports of cats evaluated totaled 120 (16.02%), 60 (50.00% of cats) of males and 60 (50.00% of cats) of females. The major findings in the urinary system in elderly dogs and cats were cystitis and stones. In the liver of cats, the most important finding was the decreased echogenicity, whereas in dogs the main findings were heterogeneous echotexture, decreased echogenicity and increased volume. The spleen of dogs and cats showed an increase in volume as most important finding. Although the gastrointestinal tract of dogs and cats has made few significant changes, the wall thickening was the major finding found in the records evaluated. The most observed in the uterus of cats and dogs were swelling, thickened wall and cyst wall. The dogs showed increased prostate volume, heterogeneous echotexture and cyst as the most important findings. In view of the 149 pet owners who participated in the interviews could be attributed to 78.52% of the animals were considered as having good quality of life, with scores of 14, 15, 16 and 17 points, 16.78% achieved quality life regular, with scores of 10, 11, 12 and 13 points. Only 4.70% of the animals had a level of quality of life bad, with 4, 5, 8 and 9 points in the perception of their owners. In this study, no sonographic findings were correlated with the clinical condition of each animal sampled. The results described and referred to the reality of a specific group of animals and should not be extrapolated to other animals that are not part of this context.