Abstract
Brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome (BOAS) is an important health and welfare problem in several popular dog breeds. Whole-body barometric plethysmography (WBBP) is a non-invasive method that allows safe and repeated quantitative measurements of respiratory cycles on unsedated dogs. Here respiratory flow traces in French bulldogs from the pet population were characterised using WBBP, and a computational application was developed to recognise affected animals. Eighty-nine French bulldogs and twenty non-brachycephalic controls underwent WBBP testing. A respiratory functional grading system was used on each dog based on respiratory signs (i.e. respiratory noise, effort, etc.) before and after exercise. For development of an objective BOAS classifier, functional Grades 0 and I were considered to have insignificant clinical signs (termed here BOAS-) and Grades II and III to have significant signs (termed here BOAS+). A comparison between owner-perception of BOAS and functional grading revealed that 60 % of owners failed to recognise BOAS in dogs that graded BOAS+ in this study.WBBP flow traces were found to be significantly different between non-brachycephalic controls and Grade 0 French bulldogs; BOAS- and BOAS+ French bulldogs. A classifier was developed using quadratic discriminant analysis of the respiratory parameters to distinguish BOAS- and BOAS + French bulldogs, and a BOAS Index was calculated for each dog. A cut-off value of the BOAS Index was selected based on a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the classifier on the training group (n=69) were 0.97, 0.93, 0.95, and 0.97, respectively. The classifier was validated using a test group of French bulldogs (n=20) with an accuracy of 0.95. WBBP offers objective screening for the diagnosis of BOAS in French Bulldogs. The technique may be applied to other brachycephalic breeds affected by BOAS, and possibly to other respiratory disease in dogs.
Highlights
Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome (BOAS) is a common respiratory disorder in brachycephalic canine breeds such as pugs, French bulldogs (FB), and bulldogs
‘Patient FB’ (i.e. FB that were referred for BOAS consultation at the Queen’s Veterinary School Hospital, QVSH) and ‘study FB’ (i.e. FB volunteered by UK owners and breeders) were recruited to the study between September 2011 and November 2014
The prevalence of BOAS+ within the total sample group (n = 89) in this study was calculated as 0.54; prevalence of 0.43 was calculated for the study FB (n = 70). 18/ 30 (60%) of the owners of the BOAS+ study FB reported their dogs never or rarely produced loud respiratory noise and/or breathing difficulty during exercise
Summary
Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome (BOAS) is a common respiratory disorder in brachycephalic (i.e. short-skulled, flat-faced) canine breeds such as pugs, French bulldogs (FB), and bulldogs. Excessive breeding selection for brachycephaly has led to deformation in the upper respiratory tract and subsequent airway obstructions because the soft tissues are not reduced in the same proportion as the skull [1,2]. Secondary lesions include everted laryngeal saccules and laryngeal collapse. BOAS-affected dogs may display a variety of clinical signs such as noisy and laboured breathing, regurgitation/vomiting, heat and exercise intolerance, cyanosis, and collapse. The clinical signs are usually chronic and deteriorate with time if the lesions are left untreated [1,2,3,4,5,6]
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