Burkhardt et al: Evaluating preoperative coagulation panels in dogs undergoing liver lobectomy for primary liver tumors: A multi-institutional retrospective study
Veterinary Surgery 7, 2024

🔍 Key Findings

• 20.6% of dogs had a preoperative prolongation in PT or aPTT, but only 5.6% had both prolonged.
• Hemangiosarcoma was the only tumor type significantly associated with both PT and aPTT prolongation (37.5% of hemangiosarcoma cases, p < .001).
• Dogs with both PT and aPTT prolongations were 6.5× more likely to have emergency surgery (p < .001) and 2.5× more likely to have hemoabdomen (p = .0022).
• 60% of dogs with both PT and aPTT prolongation required blood transfusion (p < .001).
• Only 1.9% of all dogs had both PT and aPTT prolonged by >25%, suggesting limited clinical utility of routine PT/aPTT testing.
• Platelet count <50,000/μL was rare (1.5%) and not associated with PT/aPTT changes or transfusions.
• Routine PT/aPTT testing offers low diagnostic yield in elective liver lobectomy cases.
• Authors recommend case-by-case PT/aPTT screening, especially when hemangiosarcoma or bleeding tendencies are suspected.