Abstract
The most common cause of heart failure in the canine population is myxomatous mitral valve disease, sometimes complicated by chronic kidney disease.
Many studies have been done on the use of symmetric dimethylarginine as biomarker of renal impairment in dogs affected by chronic kidney disease, few studies have examined his reliability as biomarker in dogs affected by heart diseases. Aim of this study was to evaluate symmetric dimethylarginine in dogs affected by mitral valve disease in order to identify early renal disorder.
This was a retrospective case-control study on a clinical population of dogs affected by mitral valve disease (cases) vs healthy dogs (controls). Both groups underwent a complete physical evaluation, echocardiographic examination, complete blood count, biochemical panel, including serum creatinine and urea and, when possible, urine analysis with protein-to-creatinine ratio. Serum was frozen and sent to IDEXX laboratories for symmetric dimethylarginine determination. General linear model was applied to data.
48 cases and 18 controls were included. Symmetric dimethylarginine value was in the reference value in the 65% (n=31) of cases, and in the 50% of controls. Once set symmetric dimethylarginine as dependent variable, no statistical significant differences were found for each variable considered (breed, age, sex, weight, class of cardiomyopathy, presence/absence of the valvular disease, presence/absence of congestive heart failure, pharmacological therapy, creatinine and urea concentration). Blood concentration of SDMA resulted not influenced by the variables mentioned above, and it could be considered a reliable marker of early renal impairment in dogs affected by mitral valve disease.

Key words: Symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA), myxomatous mitral valve disease (MMVD), cardiovascular-renal disorder, dog, biomarker.