Research Communications of the 27(th) ECVIM-CA Congress: Intercontinental, Saint Julian's, Malta, 14th to 16th September 2017

Disclosures: No disclosures to report. Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) in dogs is diagnosed by observing serum canine trypsin-like immunoreactivity (cTLI) to be <2.5 µg/L; affected dogs have severe fat malabsorption. Some dogs with signs of EPI have marginally subnormal serum cTLI (3-6 µg/ L) and do not respond to enzyme replacement therapy (subclinical EPI, SEPI), but given their clinical signs, abnormal serum cobalamin or folate, and absence of other detectable non-enteric disease presumably have an idiopathic chronic enteropathy (ICE). Unpublished preliminary data indicate decreased serum tocopherol concentrations in dogs with EPI that do not resolve after pancreatic enzyme supplementation. The objectives of this study were to measure serum tocopherol and retinol in dogs with EPI and those with subclinical EPI and ICE (SEPI/ICE). Inclusion criteria for the EPI group (n = 8) were clinical signs of EPI and serum cTLI concentrations <2.5 µg/L. Dogs in the SEPI/ICE group (n = 9) had clinical signs of ICE and serum cTLI concentrations in the 3.0-6.0 µg/L range. Diets of dogs in both groups were supplemented with oral pancreatic enzyme extract. Control samples were collected from 10 healthy dogs before and after 10 days of pancreatic enzyme supplementation. All samples were surplus from another study approved by our institutional ethics committee, and stored at À80°C prior to assay of tocopherol and retinol by high-performance liquid chromatography.