Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
How timing of antibiotics affects survival in septic dogs
By Kidd, Alexis et al.·Published in Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association·2025·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: The Effect of Time of Antimicrobial Administration on the Outcome of Septic Dogs.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of 175 dogs diagnosed with sepsis (a serious infection) was studied to see how the timing of antibiotic treatment affected their recovery. The results showed that giving the right antibiotics quickly was linked to shorter hospital stays and better survival rates. However, the overall timing of any antibiotic treatment did not significantly impact how long the dogs were hospitalized or their chances of survival. This suggests that getting the right treatment promptly is crucial for dogs with sepsis, but more research is needed to fully understand the effects on survival.
People also search for: dog sepsis treatment · how long do dogs stay in the hospital for sepsis · antibiotic timing in dogs with infections
Abstract
The objective of this study was to determine if the time to any antimicrobial administration, as well as time to appropriate antimicrobial administration, impacted hospitalization time of dogs diagnosed with sepsis. Records from 175 dogs diagnosed with sepsis were included in this single-center retrospective study. Results found a significant, positive correlation between hospitalization time and time to appropriate antimicrobial administration (P = .004). A significant relationship was also found between survival rate and acute patient physiological and laboratory evaluation fast (APPLEfast) score (P = .03), survival rate and source control (P = .05), and source control and time to appropriate antimicrobial administration (P < .01). No significant relationship was found between hospitalization time and time to any antimicrobial administration (P = .11), time to any antimicrobial administration and source control (P = .77), time to any (P = .11) or appropriate (P = .37) antimicrobial administration and survival rate, or APPLEfast score (P = .07). These findings suggest the importance of appropriate antimicrobial choice upon recognition of sepsis in veterinary patients to decrease length of hospitalization. Additional research is required to further investigate the effect of time to antimicrobial administration on the survival rates of dogs with sepsis.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41190688/