Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Border collie with infected aortic valve and heart defect
By Aoki, Takuma et al.·Published in The Journal of veterinary medical science·2015·School of Veterinary Medicine, Japan·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Infective endocarditis of the aortic valve in a Border collie dog with patent ductus arteriosus.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A 1-year-old female Border collie was brought to the vet because she was not eating, losing weight, running a fever, and limping. The vet found a heart murmur and diagnosed her with infective endocarditis, a serious infection of the heart valve, along with a heart condition called patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). After identifying the bacteria causing the infection, the dog was treated with strong antibiotics and later had surgery to fix the PDA. Thanks to these treatments, she showed significant improvement and has been doing well since.
People also search for: Border collie heart murmur · dog weight loss and fever · infective endocarditis treatment in dogs
Abstract
Infective endocarditis (IE) in dogs with cardiac shunts has not been reported previously. However, we encountered a dog with concurrent patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) and IE. The dog was a 1-year-old, 13.9-kg female Border collie and presented with anorexia, weight loss, pyrexia (40.4 °C) and lameness. A continuous murmur with maximal intensity over the left heart base (Levine 5/6) was detected on auscultation. Echocardiography revealed a PDA and severe aortic stenosis (AS) caused by aortic-valve vegetative lesions. Corynebacterium spp. and Bacillus subtilis were isolated from blood cultures. The dog responded to aggressive antibiotic therapy, and the PDA was subsequently surgically corrected. After a series of treatments, the dog showed long-term improvement in clinical status.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25391395/