Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Risk factors for septic peritonitis and death after dog gut surgery
By Grimes, Janet A et al.·Published in Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association·2011·Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, United States·View original on PubMed →
PetCaseFinder translated the abstract of this peer-reviewed paper into plain English so pet owners can read it. We do not publish original research — every detail traces back to the citation above. How we work →
Original publication title: Identification of risk factors for septic peritonitis and failure to survive following gastrointestinal surgery in dogs.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs that had gastrointestinal surgery were studied to find out why some developed serious infections or did not survive. Out of 197 surgeries, 16% of the dogs died before leaving the hospital, and 12% developed septic peritonitis (a severe abdominal infection). Dogs that had low protein levels before surgery or were already sick before the operation were at higher risk for these complications. Interestingly, having a foreign body in the abdomen seemed to help protect against these issues. The findings suggest that improving protein levels and careful surgical techniques could help dogs with these risk factors have better outcomes.
People also search for: dog gastrointestinal surgery complications · septic peritonitis in dogs · dog surgery recovery tips
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To identify risk factors for failure to survive and development of septic peritonitis following full-thickness gastrointestinal incision in dogs. Design-Retrospective cohort study. ANIMALS: Dogs that underwent gastrointestinal surgery from 1998 through 2007 at the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Procedures-Medical records of dogs undergoing a full-thickness gastrointestinal incision were reviewed, and information regarding dog history, clinicopathologic findings, surgery characteristics, and outcome was collected. RESULTS: Records for 197 dogs (225 surgeries) were evaluated. In 35 (16%) surgeries, the dogs died prior to hospital discharge. After 28 (12%) surgeries, dogs developed septic peritonitis. For 45 (20%) surgeries, dogs had preoperative septic peritonitis; of those, approximately a third resulted in continued septic peritonitis (17/45; 38%) or death (15/45; 33%). Of the 180 surgeries performed in dogs lacking preoperative septic peritonitis, 11 (6%) resulted in development of septic peritonitis and 20 (11 %) resulted in death. When all surgeries were considered, common risk factors for development of septic peritonitis included preoperative septic peritonitis, low preoperative serum albumin and plasma protein concentrations, and intraoperative hypotension. Presence of a foreign body was a protective factor. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Multiple factors were associated with failure to survive and development of septic peritonitis after gastrointestinal surgery in dogs. Aggressive perioperative attempts to increase protein concentrations and intraoperative surgical strategies to decrease the chance of a poor outcome may be indicated in dogs with risk factors identified in this study.
Find similar cases for your pet
PetCaseFinder finds other peer-reviewed reports of pets with the same symptoms, plus a plain-English summary of what was tried across them.
Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21320019/