Veterinary session

Gastric dilatation and volvulus (GDV) is a life-threatening condition in dogs, which requires emergency veterinary intervention. The etiology of the disease is unknown, but there are lots of predisposing factors, which we have known. By widening these circle of factors, we might have the opportunity for prevention.

The effect of weather fronts on biological organisations is well-known in human and veterinary medicine too. Based on that chain of ideas, we wanted to see if there are any significant associations between weather front effects and the incidence of GDV.

In this study, we wanted to know whether weather front effects are playing a role as predisposing factors in the incidence of this disease, or not.

We compared the weather front effect codes documented by the Meteorological Service of Hungary and the dates of the 149 cases which occurred in the Budapest University of Veterinary Medicine’s Small Animal Clinic.

We used exact polynomial method to compare the frequency of the cases in different fronteffected periods.

According to our results, there is no verifiable connection between the daily front effects and the incidence of the GDV cases (p>0,05).