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. 2018 Jul;56(7):656-665.
doi: 10.1038/s41393-018-0145-4. Epub 2018 May 23.

Development of an International Canine Spinal Cord Injury observational registry: a collaborative data-sharing network to optimize translational studies of SCI

Sarah A Moore  1 , Natalia Zidan  2 , Ingo Spitzbarth  3   4 , Yvette S Nout-Lomas  5 , Nicolas Granger  6 , Ronaldo C da Costa  7 , Jonathan M Levine  8 , Nick D Jeffery  8 , Veronika M Stein  9 , Andrea Tipold  4   10 , Natasha J Olby  2   11
Affiliations

Development of an International Canine Spinal Cord Injury observational registry: a collaborative data-sharing network to optimize translational studies of SCI

Sarah A Moore et al. Spinal Cord. 2018 Jul.

Abstract

Study design: Prospective cross-sectional cohort study.

Objectives: The canine spontaneous model of spinal cord injury (SCI) is as an important pre-clinical platform as it recapitulates key facets of human injury in a naturally occurring context. The establishment of an observational canine SCI registry constitutes a key step in performing epidemiologic studies and assessing the impact of therapeutic strategies to enhance translational research. Further, accumulating information on dogs with SCI may contribute to current "big data" approaches to enhance understanding of the disease using heterogeneous multi-institutional, multi-species datasets from both pre-clinical and human studies.

Setting: Multiple veterinary academic institutions across the United States and Europe.

Methods: Common data elements recommended for experimental and human SCI studies were reviewed and adapted for use in a web-based registry, to which all dogs presenting to member veterinary tertiary care facilities were prospectively entered over ~1 year.

Results: Analysis of data accumulated during the first year of the registry suggests that 16% of dogs with SCI present with severe, sensorimotor-complete injury and that 15% of cases are seen by a tertiary care facility within 8 h of injury. Similar to the human SCI population, 34% were either overweight or obese.

Conclusions: Severity of injury and timing of presentation suggests that neuroprotective studies using the canine clinical model could be conducted efficiently using a multi-institutional approach. Additionally, pet dogs with SCI experience similar comorbidities to people with SCI, in particular obesity, and could serve as an important model to evaluate the effects of this condition.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement:

The authors declare no conflict of interest associated with this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Demographic information for dogs with clinical SCI entered into the CSCI patient registry between June 2016 and January 2018, including body weight in kilograms (A), sex (B), body condition score (ranging from 1-5; C), and age in years at the time of presentation for SCI (D). Line (A) corresponds to median value.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Neuroanatomic location (A) and severity of injury (B) for dogs with clinical SCI entered into the CSCI patient registry between June 2016 and January 2018. Between T3-L3 (anatomical equivalent of a mid-thoracic - supra-sacral - injury in a person) was the most common site of injury. Sixteen percent of dogs had sensorimotor complete injuries at the time of presentation.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Duration of injury, defined as when the owner first noted signs of neurologic dysfunction prior to presentation, for dogs with clinical SCI entered into the CSCI patient registry between June 2016 and January 2018. Duration of injury ranged from 1 hour to 120 days (median 24 hours) and 15% of cases were presented within 8 hours of injury. For ease in graphical representation dogs with injury duration > 240 hours are not depicted (n=12).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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