Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Cholesterol levels don't predict outcome or infection type in septic
By Perez-Rodriguez, Veronica et al.·Published in The Canadian veterinary journal = La revue veterinaire canadienne·2025·Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Cholesterol concentration is associated with neither prognosis nor bacterial infection type in septic dogs.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A study looked at 299 dogs diagnosed with sepsis, a serious infection that can affect their health severely. The researchers wanted to see if cholesterol levels at the time of admission could predict how well the dogs would do or how severe their illness was. They found that cholesterol levels did not differ significantly between dogs that survived and those that did not, nor did it indicate the type of bacterial infection present. Interestingly, dogs that survived and had higher cholesterol levels tended to stay in the hospital longer. Overall, cholesterol does not seem to be a useful indicator of sepsis in dogs.
People also search for: dog sepsis treatment · high cholesterol in dogs · dog hospitalization after infection
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The objective was to assess whether cholesterol concentration at admission was associated with outcome and disease severity in dogs with sepsis, and to determine whether there was a significant difference in cholesterol between dogs with gram-positivegram-negative sepsis. ANIMALS AND PROCEDURE: Electronic medical records of dogs diagnosed with sepsis at a tertiary teaching hospital from 2012 to 2022 were evaluated. A total of 299 dogs were included. Data obtained included signalment, comorbidities, cholesterol concentration, culture results, duration of hospitalization, cost of hospitalization, and outcome. An acute patient physiological and laboratory evaluation fast score (APPLE) was calculated for every included dog. RESULTS: In septic dogs, there was no significant difference in cholesterol concentration between survivors and non-survivors. Cholesterol concentration was not significantly associated with disease severity in dogs with sepsis and there was no significant difference in cholesterol concentration between dogs with grampositivegram-negative sepsis. However, a higher cholesterol concentration was associated with longer duration of hospitalization in surviving dogs. CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: There were no significant correlations between cholesterol concentration and outcome, disease severity, or bacterial type in dogs with sepsis. Therefore, cholesterol does not appear to be a reliable biomarker of sepsis in dogs. Further research is warranted to understand the role of lipids in response to sepsis in dogs.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39781406/