The published DCM screening guidelines for Doberman Pinschers are from the European Society of Veterinary Cardiology (ESVC), not ACVIM. These guidelines, formulated by Wess et al., are the primary reference standard for Doberman DCM screening.Journal of Vete…

Screening should begin at 3 years of age and use both 24-hour Holter monitoring and echocardiography annually for the life of the dog, as a single normal screening does not rule out future DCM development.Journal of Vete…+1 The cumulative prevalence of DCM in Dobermans is reported as high as 58%.Journal of Vete…+1

The Holter diagnostic thresholds are as follows: fewer than 50 ventricular premature complexes (VPCs) in 24 hours is considered normal, though detection of any VPCs warrants concern.Journal of Vete… Greater than 300 VPCs in 24 hours is diagnostic for occult DCM regardless of echocardiographic findings.Journal of Vete… Two consecutive annual recordings each showing between 50 and 300 VPCs in 24 hours also meets the diagnostic threshold for occult DCM, again independent of echocardiographic results.Journal of Vete… A general cross-breed cutoff of greater than 100 VPCs in 24 hours has been proposed, but the Doberman-specific thresholds above take precedence for this breed.Journal of Vete…

The preferred echocardiographic method is left ventricular volume measurement by Simpson's method of discs (SMOD). SMOD is more sensitive than M-mode for detecting early echocardiographic changes in Dobermans.Journal of Vete… E-point-to-septal-separation (EPSS) is a valuable adjunct: at a cutoff of greater than 6.5 mm, EPSS has a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 99.0% for DCM diagnosis in Dobermans.Journal of Vete… The sphericity index at a cutoff of less than 1.65 has a sensitivity of 86.8% and specificity of 87.6%, but is considered inferior to SMOD because it detects geometric change only after left ventricular volume overload is already present.Journal of Vete…

Cardiac biomarkers and resting ECG are ancillary tests — not part of the standard annual protocol — but are recommended when Holter or echocardiography is unavailable or financially untenable.Journal of Vete… An NTproBNP cutoff of ≥548 pmol/L is 100% sensitive and 77.3% specific for detecting preclinical DCM with echocardiographic changes in Dobermans.Journal of Vete… Using a conventional cardiac troponin I (cTnI) assay, a cutoff of greater than 0.22 ng/mL has a sensitivity of 79.5% and specificity of 84.4% for detecting all DCM disease stages.Journal of Vete… NTproBNP and cTnI perform similarly as individual screening tests: NTproBNP achieves an AUC of 0.939 and cTnI an AUC of 0.932 for distinguishing preclinical DCM with echocardiographic changes from all other groups; combining NTproBNP with physical examination variables improves discrimination between normal dogs and all other groups to an AUC of 0.812.Journal of Vete…

A vectorcardiographic parameter — septal-to-basal ventricular peak activation time (SB-VPAT) — is an emerging pre-screening tool. At a cutoff of ≥33.5 ms, SB-VPAT has a sensitivity of 94.4% and specificity of 83.6% for detecting systolic dysfunction due to preclinical DCM stage B2 (AUC 0.954).Frontiers in Ve… This has been investigated as a readily available pre-screening method to identify high-risk dogs before committing to full Holter and echocardiographic workup.Frontiers in Ve…

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