Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 13:49:41 GMT

[quote user="Tom Waterworth"]

[quote user="Bob Russell"]

The teeth are painful so cats will tend to avoid using affected teeth if they can. I can find very little on resorptive lesions in man but have been assured they are pretty painful as well!

Not seen a dog affected but we keep looking!

[/quote]

Bob - this dog really surprised me as still chews things like mad, eats without problems and I think if the owners were not so diligent about cleaning the teeth - then the loose crowns would not be noticed.

It does make me wonder about these dogs with "missing teeth" - if they have had this before. More evidence for full mouth radiographs!

[/quote]

The pain of FORLS is mostly due to pulp exposure. If it's all subgingival, there's no exposure. And when the pulp's dead, there's no pain.

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Tom Waterworth — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 12:46:01 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]

The teeth are painful so cats will tend to avoid using affected teeth if they can. I can find very little on resorptive lesions in man but have been assured they are pretty painful as well!

Not seen a dog affected but we keep looking!

[/quote]

It does make me wonder about these dogs with "missing teeth" - if they have had this before. More evidence for full mouth radiographs!

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 18:44:10 GMT

The one above is obviously associated with periodontal disease and I do suspect a causal relationship.

The one below showed a normal gum appearance but the tooth was discoloured with a brownish translucent sort of look. Using a probe and an explorer at the gum margin of the distal soon gave the impression of a crown floating without a root.

Lisa Milella has written some up as an article in BVDAJ

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Rob Davis — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 18:26:02 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Not seen a dog affected but we keep looking![/quote]

This paper suggests we may be missing them: reporptive lesions were found in 53.6% of 224 dogs over 1 year of age, and in 11.1% of 8478 teeth radiographed! The percentage of dogs affected increased with age and bodyweight. Admittedly this was a population of dogs admitted for dental problems, but it still sounds very high.

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Is good dental hygiene going to have any direct impact at all with this condition? Obviously a good thing in general but I rarely find FORL's associated with scale.[/quote]

There appears to be a link between periodontal disease and type 1 TR: in a study of 543 feline teeth with TR, approximately 50% were classified as type1 and 50% as type 2. Of the type 1 lesions, 72% had periodontitis present, whereas only 15.6% of those with type 2 lesions did. This would suggest that good dental hygiene may be helpful in reducing the incidence of type1 TR.

There have been a handful of papers linking Type 2 TR in cats to high dietary vitamin D intake. It appears that there may be some link, but there are undoubtedly other elements involved in the aetiology probably involving local inflammatory products.

Still more questions than answers I'm afraid!

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Bob Russell — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 17:19:48 GMT

Is good dental hygiene going to have any direct impact at all with this condition? Obviously a good thing in general but I rarely find FORL's associated with scale.

The teeth are painful so cats will tend to avoid using affected teeth if they can. I can find very little on resorptive lesions in man but have been assured they are pretty painful as well!

Not seen a dog affected but we keep looking!

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Stephen Courtney — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 21:27:02 GMT

Thanks for sharing your pictures, and bringing this syndrome in dogs to our attention - i knew it was possible but have never picked up on it.

More radiographs!

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Tom Waterworth — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 20:25:07 GMT

Thank you all for your input!

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 17:05:36 GMT

Wot everyone else has said.

Resorptive disease apparently identical to what I still call FORL in the cat does occur in the dog, though more often I find in odd isolated teeth, when it seems associated with local periodontal disease (but that is not to suggest any causal relationship) as you can see in the OP radiographs .

I find FORL a good term, since: a) there are many kinds of tooth resorption some of which have nothing at all to do with the syndrome (two syndromes, to be pedantic) we commonly recognise in the cat; and b) it is only in feline species, in fact pretty well only in Felis catus as far as I know, that it is a common and widespread syndrome to the extent that one may refer to it as a disease of cats. In other words, if we say FORL we all know exactly what we are talking about. I consider an insistence upon talking only of "tooth resorption" when speaking of cats to be a clever-clever piece of misplaced and mistaken and ultimately misleading pedantry emanating, as one might expect, from the United States.

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 17:14:16 GMT

Re sportive lesions for sure. Good dental hygiene helpful but nothing can be done once lesions present except extract. Full mouth rads advisable :)

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Tom Waterworth — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:45:55 GMT

[quote user="Rob Davis"]Indeed, this looks and sounds like tooth resorption. The term FORL, though widely use, has fallen out of favour amongst the dental fraternity, being replaced by "tooth resorption". One of the reasons was removing the "feline" part, as this is not exclusively a feline problem.[/quote]

I agree that this does look like a purely resorptive lesion. Any ideas if there is anything that can be done to prevent this other than scrupulous oral hygiene?

RE: Odd dental lesions in a Springer Spaniel

Rob Davis — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:19:09 GMT

[quote user="Tom Waterworth"]I was wondering if any of you dental experts could help me[/quote]

I'm no expert, but will chip in until the big guns appear!

[quote user="Tom Waterworth"] The crowns were easy to remove but the roots were absorbing into the bone very akin to FORL lesions in cats[/quote]

Indeed, this looks and sounds like tooth resorption. The term FORL, though widely use, has fallen out of favour amongst the dental fraternity, being replaced by "tooth resorption". One of the reasons was removing the "feline" part, as this is not exclusively a feline problem.

[quote user="Tom Waterworth"] Due to costs and a bit of lack of forethought, I wish I had done a full mouth set to see if I could see any early lesions on other teeth [/quote]

Isn't hindsight great! I agree that in a perfect world, full mouth radiography would be the best way to identify any other lesions. The more radiographs you take, the more you start to see tooth resorption in both dogs and cats.

As far as I know the aetiology is not understood, but I'm very interested if anybody else knows better. The following links may be interesting:

wellpets

Fraser Hale