All posts by AMCteam

Canine Liver Disease and Elevated Copper Levels: What Dog Owners Need to Know

A Bedlington Terrier
There’s been a connection between canine liver disease and elevated levels of copper seen in a liver biopsy since the late 1970’s when veterinarians from the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, in collaboration with researchers from Albert Einstein School of Medicine, identified copper storage disease in Bedlington terrriers. Twenty-eight years later, researchers identified a gene mutation in COMMD1, a gene controlling copper metabolism, as the cause of the copper storage disease in Bedlington terriers. However, the link between copper and liver disease in dogs extends beyond this gene mutation, and veterinary researchers continue to study the connection. The image below shows a graphic representation of a National Library of Medicine database search for publications that meet the search criteria “canine AND copper hepatopathy”. (Hepatopathy is the medical term for liver disease.) Several of the publication peaks seen here can help explain the linkage between liver disease and copper.

Happy Birthday to the ACVIM and the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine

Veterinarians conducting research
The American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) is celebrating its 50th anniversary. ACVIM encompasses the veterinary specialties of oncology, neurology, internal medicine, cardiology and nutrition. As part of the celebration, the ACVIM is highlighting their official journal, the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine (JVIM), which just celebrated its 35th birthday. The JVIM provides an international forum for communication and discussion of the latest developments in large and small animal internal medicine, cardiology, neurology and oncology, making JVIM a journal AMC veterinarians read frequently and with great interest.

Ask the Vet: Answers to Your Questions About Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome and Collapsing Trachea

Ann Hohenhaus examines a dog
Every month on Ask the Vet, radio show and podcast I host in partnership with Sirius XM, I answer listener question that come into our email box at AskTheVet@amcny.org. This past month I had so many good questions, I could not answer them all and still talk with my guest, AMC’s new President and CEO, Helen Irving. Two of the questions were about common respiratory problems managed by AMC specialists. The questions and my answers can be found below.

Tickborne Illnesses Are On the Rise: What Pet Owners Need to Know

A tick and a dog
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have great information on their website to help all of us stay healthy. The site contains information on travel health, foodborne illnesses and descriptions of every disease you can imagine in their Health Topics A-Z. They even have section called Healthy Pets, Healthy People with information about pet care and pet diseases. In today’s blogpost, I’ll be discussing tick bites and tickborne diseases, an issue that concerns humans and our companion animals alike.

Canine Pyometra: What Dog Owners Need to Know

A veterinarian and assistant examine a dog
Pyometra is one of those medical words veterinarians use that often require translation for pet families. Pyo- is from the Latin word for pus, and metra is Greek for uterus. Once you know this etymology then you can understand why pyometra is an emergency. The pus in the uterus is the result of a bacterial infection, and dogs with pyometra become seriously ill. I’ll discuss risk factors, clinical signs and treatment options for pyometra in this week’s blogpost.