Intervertebral Disc Disease in Dogs – The Relationship Between Recovery and Timing of Surgery

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between functional recovery and timing of surgery in dogs diagnosed with intervertebral disc disease treated surgically. Intervertebral disc disease is the most common spinal disease in dogs; it plays a significant role in the scientific field by its high prevalence. There is also an existing hypothesis that the faster the surgery is performed, the better the outcome will be. The data were collected during two years at one institution. The patients were neurologically assessed using the modified Frankel score when they were first diagnosed with intervertebral disc disease at the clinic and later after the surgery and during the following weeks. A total of 36 dogs were included in this study, represented by 13 different dog breeds and crossbreeds. In total 17 were females and 19 males. The mean age of the patients was 6.9 ± 2.97 years (range 2—15 years) and the mean body condition score was 3.5 within a scale of 1—5. Out of the 36 evaluated dogs, surgery was performed on 25 of them. The mean time of duration of clinical signs before surgery was 9 ± 13 days. The main limitation of this study was the small group of investigated dogs. Although the study was based on a small number of participants, the findings suggested that the timing of the surgery and recovery had a positive Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.39; implying that the timing of the surgery may have affected the recovery.