34th Annual Scientific Meeting proceedings

Objectives:

Partial tarsal arthrodesis (PTA) is a salvage procedure for dogs with intertarsal, calcaneoquartal, and tarsometatarsal instability. There are no large-scale studies which report the prevalence and incidence rates of infection in dogs after PTA. The objectives of this paper were to report the prevalence and incidence rate of infection in dogs following PTA and to compare these measures to those from dogs undergoing tibial plateau levelling osteotomy (TPLO). It was hypothesised that the prevalence of infection for dogs having PTA would be higher than in dogs having a TPLO. Risk factors associated with infection following PTA were examined and identified.  

Methods:

Medical records for dogs having PTA and TPLO were reviewed. The prevalence, incidence rate, odds and incidence rate ratio of infection were calculated. Multi-variate analysis was used to identify risk factors for infection.

Results:

The prevalence of infection following PTA or TPLO was 44.09 and 13.14%. The incidence rate of infection was 0.00276 and 0.000010 infections per dog weeks. The odds and incidence rate ratio of infection following PTA was 5.3 and 28.2. The conditional odds of infection was 3.6 and 3.1 for dogs with a bandage or autogenous bone graft.

Conclusions:

Dogs with PTA have a higher prevalence of infection than historically reported, are 5 times more likely to develop infection, and developed infection at 28 times the rate of dogs having TPLO. Bandaging and the application of bone graft were risk factors for infection; however, these results are likely confounded by case characteristics.