33rd Annual Scientific Meeting proceedings

Introduction
Several surgical techniques may be used to correct elongated soft palate in brachycephalic dogs.  However, a variety of clinical or perioperative factors have influence on outcomes of selected surgical methods. The aim of this study was to analyze risk factors for complicated perioperative recovery of dogs undergoing either staphylectomy or folding flap palatoplasty.


Materials and Methods
Medical records of dogs that underwent either staphylectomy or folding flap palatoplasty were reviewed for signalment, brachycephalic risk (BRISK) score, history of gastrointestinal signs, laryngeal collapse grade, presence of preoperative aspiration pneumonia, intraoperative respiratory and cardiovascular complications, length of general anaesthesia, number of corrected brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome (BOAS) components, and gastrointestinal and respiratory postoperative complications. Complicated recovery was defined as requirement for prolonged oxygen treatment and/or tracheostomy. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression was used to identify risk factors.


Results
Seventy-six dogs were enrolled in the study. Multivariate regression identified 6 risk factors for complicated recovery. These include surgery type (p <0.0001), age (p=0.0065), severity of laryngeal collapse (p=0.0063), presence of pre-operative aspiration pneumonia (p=0.0002), length of general anaesthesia (p=0.0011), and number of BOAS components requiring surgical correction (p=0.0386). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed an area under the curve (AUC) for these factors of 0.98.


Discussion/Conclusions
The results of this study identified important risk factors for dogs undergoing elongated soft palate correction. These should be taken into consideration for surgical planning.