Spinal cord injury is a common cause of neurological dysfunction in dogs and cats. Lesions in these species are due to various types of accident, which can cause sequelae that impair the patient for life as a pet, or cause life-threatening injury. The main purpose of this work was the accompaniment of animals with spinal cord trauma seen from August 2009 to November 2010 at the Veterinary Hospital of Universidade Estadual de Londrina, studying the epidemiology and etiology, risk factors, spinal cord segments most affected, outcome of conservative or surgical treatment, ratio of time of patient care with recovery, efficacy and side effects of neuroprotective drugs, complications, sequels and evolution of patients. During this period we monitored 57 animals (48 dogs and nine cats). We observed a predominance of males (68%) and indoors (79%). The main cause of injury was being hit by a car (66%). The time between injury and first attendance was less than eight hours in 42% of cases and more than a day in 51%. The spinal segment most affected was the thoracolumbar (52%). Twenty animals were euthanized after the initial attendance due to poor prognosis. The conservative treatment such as rest and/or external immobilization was performed on 29 animals, and a good outcome was seen in 72.4% of this patients: total functional recovery was observed in 17 (58.6%) animals and partial functional recovery was seen in four (13.8%). Four animals did not recover, and four animals died. Surgical treatment was performed in eight patients, and three animals recovered, one patient did not recover and four animals died or were subjected to euthanasia due to complications during intraoperative or postoperative period. Conservative treatment was a viable therapy, mainly in dogs with cervical spinal cord trauma.
Nervous system; spinal cord; vertebral fracture; dogs and cats
