Associations between cardiac pathology and clinical, echocardiographic and electrocardiographic findings in dogs with chronic congestive heart failure

Arterial narrowing significantly correlated with fibrosis (P < 0.0001) and with fractional shortening, an indicator of systolic function (P = 0.002). The grade of fibrosis was associated with shorter survival time (P = 0.002), and the papillary muscle fibrosis score tended to correlate with proximal isovelocity surface area radius (P = 0.03). Data from this study lend support to the hypothesis that naturally occurring canine CHF is affected by several factors such as MMVD, myocardial atrophy and fibrosis, and by arteriosclerosis. Further, more extensive research will be required to establish cause-effect relationships between these cardiac lesions and the pathophysiology of CHF in dogs. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.