Abstract:
Diabetic cardiomyopathy is a primary abnormality of cardiac structure and function induced by diabetes independent of coronary artery disease, hypertension, and other cardiac diseases. Systolic and diastolic dysfunction in diabetic human patients occur secondary to cardiomyocyte loss, interstitial fibrosis, and hypertrophy of cardiac cell. Currently, there is no study determining changes of cardiac function and cardiac biomarker levels in diabetic dogs. This study aimed to evaluate cardiac function and measure cardiac biomarker concentrations including cardiac troponin I (cTnI), galectin 3 (Gal-3), and N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptides (NT-proBNP) in diabetic dogs compared to healthy control dogs and to determine correlations between cardiac biomarkers and echocardiographic parameters in diabetic dogs. Nineteen diabetic and 20 age and size matched control dogs were included in the study. Diabetic dogs had a higher prevalence of diastolic dysfunction (57.88%) than control dogs (15.00 %). Diabetic dogs had E-wave deceleration time, Peak PVar duration, and Peak A’ velocity significantly higher than control dogs and E’/A’ ratio significantly lower than control dogs. No significant difference of plasma cTnI and Gal-3 concentrations was found between two groups. There were correlations between plasma NT-proBNP concentrations and echocardiographic diastolic parameters. In conclusion, diabetic dogs in this study had a preserved systolic function with a higher prevalence of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction than control dogs.
