Abstract

The present study was designed to evaluate the clinical, hematobiochemical, and histopathological alterations associated with doxorubicin-induced cardiomyopathy in dogs. A total number of twelve clinically healthy adult Egyptian street dogs were involved in this study and evaluated two times (immediately prior to the first doxorubicin dose "baseline" while the second time "final evaluation" was after administration of the sixth "final" dose of doxorubicin). Our obtained data showed numerical reduction of total RBCs count, Hb content and PCV% and significant reduction of total WBCs count value in the final evaluation compared to baseline one. On the other hand, there were a significant elevation of NT-proBNP and cardiac troponin I value in the final evaluation compared to baseline one. additionally histopathological evaluation revealed myocardial vacuolization, congestion, hemorrhage, degeneration and fibrotic changes in doxorubicin-treated dogs. In conclusions, the doxorubicin was linked to a sharper decline in total WBCs count levels due to its potent myelosuppression effect associated with more prominent myocardial degenerative lesions. Moreover, NT-proBNP and cardiac troponin I could be useful in the pre-clinical diagnosis of cardiomyopathy in dogs.

Key words: Dilated cardiomyopathy; Doxorubicin, NT-proBNP, cardiac troponin I, Doxorubicin induced cardiomyopathy.