RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS OF THE 28th ECVIM-CA CONGRESS

Previous studies have demonstrated that murmur intensity is associated with stenosis severity in dogs with pulmonic and aortic stenosis. However, anecdotally, some breeds provide challenges to auscultation, while others are easily auscultated. Cardiologists have suggested that this could affect the interpretation of murmur intensity in estimating disease severity – dogs that are difficult to auscult would be expected to have more severe disease than their murmur intensity suggests, while dogs that are easily auscultated would be expected to have less severe disease than their murmur intensity suggests, especially at the ends of the murmur scale. We retrospectively examined murmur intensity in 1065 dogs with pulmonic or aortic stenosis, presenting to 7 cardiology centers, and evaluated the effect of breed on ability to predict disease severity.