Re: medical treatment of PDA

salome2001 — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:12:28 GMT

It does indeed. Thanks Mike.

Re: medical treatment of PDA

Mike Martin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:55:33 GMT

The mechanism of the Ductus Arteriosus ending up Patent is different between babies and dogs. Simply put, in babies that are preterm, the ductal muscle fails to receive the signalling to contract - these drugs however can stimulate muscle contraction and thus closure.

In dogs, there is a failure in actual ductal muscle development, so there is effectively no muscle to be stimulated. Hence these drugs don't work in dogs. There is a wonderful piece of research by one of the Gods in the Vet Cardiology, Dr Jim Buchanan (also famous for the vertebral heart score) in which he 'discovered' and explains this problem in dogs. Click this link. However you need access to VIN to see this. For those that do, scroll down to figures 26-27 and read the explanation. This work is also published in JVC. Click link.

Hope this brief explanation helps?