Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Does metronidazole help dogs with sudden diarrhea?
By Langlois, Daniel K et al.·Published in Journal of veterinary internal medicine·2020·Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Metronidazole treatment of acute diarrhea in dogs: A randomized double blinded placebo-controlled clinical trial.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs with acute diarrhea was treated with metronidazole, a common medication, to see if it would help them recover faster compared to those who received a placebo. The dogs that received metronidazole had diarrhea resolve in about 2 days on average, while those on the placebo took about 3.5 days. Additionally, fewer dogs treated with metronidazole showed signs of a specific bacteria (Clostridium perfringens) in their feces after treatment. This suggests that metronidazole may help some dogs recover from diarrhea more quickly, but many dogs get better on their own within a few days.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Metronidazole is commonly administered to dogs with acute diarrhea, but there is limited evidence to support this practice. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of metronidazole administration on dogs with acute nonspecific diarrhea. ANIMALS: Thirty-one dogs, including 14 test population dogs and 17 controls. METHODS: Randomized controlled clinical trial. Dogs with acute diarrhea in which causation was not determined by routine fecal diagnostic testing were randomly assigned to metronidazole treatment (10-15 mg/kg PO q12h for 7 days) or placebo. Fecal cultures and characterization of Clostridium perfringens isolates also were performed. Owners maintained medication and fecal scoring logs, and fecal diagnostic tests were repeated on day 7. RESULTS: The mean ± SD time to resolution of diarrhea for test population dogs (2.1 ± 1.6 days) was less than that for controls (3.6 ± 2.1 days, P = .04). Potential relationships of C. perfringens with acute diarrhea pathogenesis were not investigated, but only 3 of 13 (23.1%) test population dogs had persistent C. perfringens carriage at day 7, which was less than the 11 of 14 (78.6%) controls with persistent growth (P = .007). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Our results suggest that metronidazole treatment can shorten duration of diarrhea and decrease fecal culture detection of C. perfringens in some dogs with acute nonspecific diarrhea. Additional studies are needed to assess the benefits and risks of routine use of metronidazole for this purpose because most dogs achieve resolution of diarrhea within several days regardless of treatment.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31742807/