Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Which heart medicine combo helps dogs with mitral valve disease live
By Romito, Giovanni et al.·Published in Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association·2025·University of Bologna, Italy·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Comparison of the effects of dual, triple, and quadruple medical therapy on cardiac death in a retrospective cohort of dogs with myxomatous mitral valve disease at American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine stage C: is more necessarily better?
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs with myxomatous mitral valve disease, a common heart condition, were treated with different combinations of medications to see which worked best to prevent heart-related deaths. The dogs received either two medications (furosemide and pimobendan), three medications (adding benazepril), or four medications (adding spironolactone). After analyzing the results, researchers found that there was no significant difference in survival rates among the different treatment groups. This suggests that using just two medications may be just as effective as using more medications for these dogs.
People also search for: dog heart disease treatment · myxomatous mitral valve disease in dogs · furosemide and pimobendan for dogs
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To compare selected cardiac effects of dual therapy (DT; furosemide and pimobendan), triple therapy (TT; furosemide, pimobendan, and benazepril), and quadruple therapy (QT; furosemide, pimobendan, benazepril, and spironolactone) in dogs with myxomatous mitral valve disease at American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) stage C. METHODS: This was a multicenter retrospective study involving dogs with ACVIM stage C myxomatous mitral valve disease treated with DT, TT, or QT. Statistical analysis was aimed at comparing the effects of treatment protocols on a primary outcome (cardiac death) and selected cardiovascular intermediate events (progression from ACVIM stage C to D and development of clinically relevant pulmonary hypertension and arrhythmias). RESULTS: 211 dogs were included (DT group, 65; TT group, 105; QT group, 41). No statistically significant differences were found when comparing the rate of cardiac death between the DT and TT groups (P = .29), DT and QT groups (P = .32), and TT and QT groups (P = .94). No statistically significant differences were observed among the DT, TT, and QT Kaplan-Meier cardiac death survival curves in either the unadjusted (P = .32) or adjusted (P = .37) analyses. CONCLUSIONS: In this study sample, QT and TT did not provide a higher clinically evident cardiac protective effect compared to DT. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: DT was not inferior to TT and QT in terms of cardiac death in dogs with ACVIM stage C myxomatous mitral valve disease included in this study.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40840525/