Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Dog develops heart wall blood clot after car accident
By Moretto, L et al.·Published in Journal of veterinary cardiology : the official journal of the European Society of Veterinary Cardiology·2025·Department for Small Animals·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Post-traumatic interventricular septal hematoma in a dog.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A 6-year-old neutered male Airedale terrier was hit by a car and suffered a serious head injury. After the accident, he developed heart rhythm problems and had high levels of a heart protein called cardiac troponin I. Tests showed he had a hematoma (a collection of blood) in the heart wall, which improved over the following weeks. However, about a year later, he showed signs of heart failure and was ultimately euthanized due to a poor response to treatment. This case highlights a rare heart issue in dogs following trauma.
People also search for: dog heart problems after injury · Airedale terrier heart failure symptoms · post-traumatic heart issues in dogs
Abstract
A six-year-old, neutered male, Airedale terrier with craniocerebral injury and shock after being hit by a car developed post-traumatic arrhythmia, which persisted after hemodynamic and neurological stabilization. Cardiac troponin I was markedly elevated. Transthoracic echocardiography and computed tomography angiography revealed an interventricular septal lesion, compatible with a myocardial splitting and intramural hematoma formation. The cardiac lesion resolved almost completely during the following weeks. About one year after initial presentation, the dog was referred with signs of right-sided congestive heart failure, thin and inhomogeneous interventricular septum, dilated cardiac chambers, and pulmonary artery, compatible with pulmonary hypertension, likely secondary to the left heart disease. Eventually the dog was euthanized due to poor response to medical therapy, approximately one year after his first decompensation. Interventricular septal hematomas are rare events in people, usually associated with cardiac surgery, trauma, or acute myocardial ischemia. This is the first dog described with a post-traumatic septal hematoma that has been extensively documented by means of echocardiography and cross-sectional imaging.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40614410/