Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The female dog has a unique reproductive endocrinology, with high levels of progesterone throughout the 70-day long luteal phase. In this project, markers of glucose metabolism were studied and compared from the aspects of breed group and time in oestral cycle. The parameters studied were: glucose, insulin, progesterone, fructosamine and the newly introduced analysis of HbA1c. Hba1c was also further evaluated and discussed as a diagnostic tool in canine medicine.

No differences in terms of glucose markers were found between a group of purebreed dogs of various breeds compared to a group of dogs with high risk of dioestrus diabetes, namely the Norwegian and Swedish elkhounds.

No differences were found between the two sample occasions, anoestrus and dioestrus, concluding that there is no need for relating test results to the time of the oestrous cycle in middle-aged intact female dogs.

There were statistically significant higher values of all glucose markers in diabetic dogs than in non-diabetic dogs. When it came to HbA1c, however, there was a larger overlap between the two groups, compared to fructosamine. The HbA1c
analysis was easy to perform, but was found to have a low precision. It was not possible to compare the results of HbA1c with other studies, since there is no agreement of a standardized method. The author therefore concludes that if
HbA1c is to be used in veterinary medicine, reference values for the specific laboratory and analytic method needs to be set up.