Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Correlating clinical activity and histopathologic assessment of gastrointestinal lesion severity: current challenges.
- Journal:
- The Veterinary clinics of North America. Small animal practice
- Year:
- 2011
- Authors:
- Willard, Michael & Mansell, Joanne
- Affiliation:
- Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences · United States
Plain-English summary
Veterinary researchers have noticed that the seriousness of tissue damage in the intestines of dogs and cats doesn't always match up with how sick the pet seems. Although there are different ways to measure this tissue damage, no single method has become the standard. A group supported by the World Small Animal Veterinary Association is working on a guide to help veterinarians assess these changes in a consistent way. This article discusses the progress made and the difficulties faced in linking the tissue damage to the actual symptoms pets show. Overall, the effort to create a reliable grading system is ongoing and still faces challenges.
Abstract
There has been increasing awareness that the severity of histopathologic lesions does not always correlate with the severity of clinical signs. Several grading systems for gastrointestinal histopathologic lesions have been generated, but there has been no widespread acceptance of one system. The World Small Animal Veterinary Association sponsored a gastrointestinal study group that produced a template of histologic changes in the gastrointestinal tract of the feline and canine in an attempt to generate widespread acceptance of a grading system. This article outlines the progress, pitfalls, and challenges in correlating histopathologic changes in the gastrointestinal tract with clinical activity.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21486647/