Epidemiologia, prevalência e distribuição das lesões extrarrenais de uremia em cães

Abstract

The kidneys have vital functions to the organism, such as catabolites excretion, maintenance of salt and water concentrations, hormone production, and acid-basic regulation. Retention of nitrogen products of the protein catabolism occurs, with the severe loss of the renal function, a condition called azotemia. Uremia is understood as a condition resulting from prolonged azotemia and is considered an important cause of death in dogs. Aiming to determine the epidemiology, prevalence, and morphological characteristics (including the anatomic localization) of the extrarenal uremic lesions, as well as to determine the main lesions of the urinary system associated to the occurrence of uremia, the protocols of necropsies performed in dogs between January 1996 and December 2012 (17 years) at the Laboratório de Patologia Veterinária of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria were analyzed. A total of 4,201 dogs were necropsied and 161 (3,8%) had extrarenal uremic lesions. Clinical signs associated to uremia were reported in 134 dogs (83,2%). The extrarenal lesions more often observed, in descending order of prevalence, were: ulcerative and hemorrhagic gastritis (56,5%), soft-tissue mineralization (55,9%), pulmonary edema (47,2%), ulcerative stomatitis and/or glossitis (30,4%), endocarditis/atrial and aortic thrombosis (28,6%), parathyroid hyperplasia (9,3%), fibrous osteodytrophy (8,1%), anemia (6,2%), ulcerative laryngitis (5%), ulcerative and hemorrhagic enteritis (3,7%), fibrinonecrotic esophagitis (1,9%), and fibrinous pericarditis (1,9%). In most of the cases, the extrarenal lesions of uremia were due to prolonged azotemia secondary to severe renal lesions, such as interstitial nephritis and glomerulonephritis (the most prevalent ones).