Is liver shunt hereditary?

[Marcellacml]

[DaisyMaesMom]

Absolutely!

[yorkieusa]

The symptoms of portacaval liver shunt can start to appear at almost any age. Dogs with a liver shunt are usually very thin dogs who pick at food. They not only have a poor appetite but they can become lethargic, dizzy, and stagger. They may try to climb out of their pen, climb higher on you and cry and throw their head far back after eating, and they may go into convulsions.

This is not a new disease but one which is coming to the attention of all Yorkshire Terrier breeders and other toy breeders in the 80's and 90's and many breeders feel that it is an inherited disease and that the only way to eliminate that disease is to cull those dogs who are affected and producing this disease from their breeding program.

This disease usually goes hand in hand with a kidney disorder and it seems that a special diet can sometimes keep it under control with some dogs for a time. Surgery sometimes works depending on where the "shunt" is. What happens is that the blood by-passes the liver and goes directly to the heart and therefore the liver shrivels up, becomes filled with infection and the dog convulses.

These dogs so affected are unable to cope with barbiturates. We accidentally found this out in '86 when I dosed my dogs with Ace Promazine for travel sickness and one "sickly" girl puppy slept as though she died. She did come around the next day. Later we associated this with her condition when she convulsed and died at 12 weeks. An autopsy revealed an infected and shriveled up liver, the result of a liver shunt.

The Yorkshire Terrier Foundation is in the process of trying to clinically prove that this is an inherited disease, but I have proven to myself that it is because of my own test breeding and eliminating those dogs involved which thereby ended my problems now for many years.

There's always the possibility that this is the first time it happened to a breeder. Hey, there was a first time for me too!! It's not SHAME ON YOU for having the problem, but it is SHAME ON YOU if you, as a breeder, don't take steps to see that it doesn't happen again.

If your dog shows any of these symptoms, the blood tests alone and the bile acid tests are INCONCLUSIVE. If the dog dies, have your veterinarian do a simple autopsy to examine the liver.

Do not just put the dog to sleep because the blood test has an elevated white count and the veterinarian THINKS it may be the liver disease. Unless the dog is extremely debilitated, it may not be the liver disease and you will have put him/her down for no reason.

There are various specialists who *know* how to recognize the disease so that you are certain that you are getting an accurate prognosis.

http://www.shooterdog.com/alexfaq3.htm

[Mardelin]

Originally Posted by Marcellacml

Here's some Info


Here is an update of the happenings at University of Tennessee regarding liver shunts in Yorkies. I realize it's a very long letter, but I hope getting the information directly to you will help clarify our programs.

We have several ongoing programs regarding liver shunts in Yorkies and other breeds:

First and foremost is our Angel Fund. This fund was started with the help of Terri Shumsky. Terri truly was a Yorkie Angel; through her efforts dozens of owners were assisted with medical and surgical care of their shunt puppies or were directed to places where they could receive excellent treatment. The fund was set up for three purposes: to help determine the hereditary nature of liver shunts, to help support surgery costs for owners, and to help support clinical projects to improve detection and survival of dogs with shunts. The fund has been used for all of these purposes, and continues to be supported by compassionate Yorkie and non-Yorkie dog owners and enthusiasts. In fact, YTNR recently made a $2,500 donation to the fund to keep it going, and a recent clinical project has added another $3000. Many owners of Yorkies and other affected breeds have also made contributions.

The hereditary studies were also supported by a 1 year grant from the AKC. With this grant, we performed pedigree and epidemiology studies. We found that incidence of shunts was twice as high in dogs that were inbred, but that there was no single family line that could be identified as a shunt carrier. We also found that Yorkshire terriers had a 36 times greater risk of having congenital shunts than all breeds combined, and the odds of having a shunt was 58 times that of mixed breed dogs. With the funding we also developed our "breeding family". We had several Yorkies with corrected shunts that we hoped could be bred to produce puppies so that we could determine mode of inheritance.

We have learned that the characteristic for shunts is not simple dominant, simple recessive, or sex linked, and that the disease can skip generations (although we do not know whether these healthy pups are carriers of the gene). The AKC grant was completed 2 years ago, and the results have been published in 2 scientific journals (attached below), so we are no longer doing pedigree studies. We've decided we will not accept any more dogs for breeding, but we hope to start looking at the actual gene assays, or assisting other researchers with this, using our Yorkie family and their offspring.

Our second project is determining better ways to diagnose shunts. As you may know, nuclear scans (rectal scintigraphy) can tell us whether there is shunting or not, but they cannot tell us the type of shunt (i.e. whether it is surgically correctable, or whether there are multiple acquired shunts present). We have recently developed a better technique ("transplenic scintigraphy") for scanning dogs, and it seems to be able to diagnose multiple acquired versus single congenital shunts. The scan is quicker and uses less radioactivity, making it safer for us and the dogs. This funded project has just won the National Radiology Award, and two publications have been submitted. This study was also funded by an outside research grant that allowed us to pay for scintigraphy in over 40 dogs; we will continue to assess the dogs we've evaluated and hope to present our expanced results at next year's national surgery meeting.

Our third project is determining why some dogs have complications after surgery. This funded study is looking at blood sugar and hormone levels in our patients and may help us to predict which dogs will have problems immediately after surgery or later in life. Most often, dangerously low blood sugar affects Yorkies within 6 hours after the surgery, but other breeds are also affected. This study is ongoing and will continue until we can find the answer to this dangerous problem.

What is the bottom line of all our programs? We have determined that shunts are hereditary, that we might decrease the risk with less inbreeding, that it is passed as a genetic trait through multiple genes or through a gene that only expresses itself under certain conditions. With all of our experience that we have gained, our mortality rate is 1% for surgical correction (compared to 2-14% at other hospitals), and we see no fatal seizures after surgery in dogs (compared to 3-7% in other hospitals). Our dogs require no anti-seizure medication before surgery, and usually stay 1-2 nights in the hospital after surgery (compared to 2-4 at other hospitals) because of low postoperative complication rates. Our average surgery time is half that of most other referral hospitals, and 85% of our dogs are clinically normal 4-6 months after surgery.


University of Tennessee will continue to lead the country in clinical studies of dogs with shunts and we will continue to try and help Yorkie owners and other dog lovers by keeping the costs low. This gives us plenty of animals to evaluate, and tons of experience that will continually make us better. Currently we are giving owners an estimate of $1400-1600; this includes bloodwork, scintigraphy, anesthesia, surgery, and 2 days aftercare. We expect this estimate to rise every year with inflation, but have found that our prices are usually much less than at other clinics. Our administration may request that we increase these costs to reflect our expertise in the area (and to make them more equivalent to "market"- usually $2200-$4000) but so far we've been able to convince them of the value that information from these patients provides. (It also allows us to help more dogs!)


Please feel free to forward - so that everyone will be well informed.


Dr. Tobias, DVM, MS, Diplomate ACVS
Professor, Small Animal Surgery
University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine

[peanut]

I lost my first Yorkie Tucker to Liver Shunt Disease he had no symptons till 3.5 but it is heredity thats why everyone really needs to get a great breeder....This breeder that I got him from still is breeding, she was banned from AKC then everything went in her sons name and he got banned from AKC now they are using her daughters name...Some people are just in it for the money...so really be careful.....

[Patti]

Cali has a mild case and I called her breeder ans she said she would stop breeding that pair but who really knows. I will only buy a puppy from now on that has been liver shunt tested.

[Chrissy0277]

Originally Posted by Patti

Cali has a mild case and I called her breeder ans she said she would stop breeding that pair but who really knows. I will only buy a puppy from now on that has been liver shunt tested.

Im curious what would you call a mild case?

Im not trying to sound nasty, Im just curious.

http://livershunt.org/

[Marcellacml]

I got her from a petstore and shes covered for anything hereditary but i'm still worried aobut her.

and you know how puppymills are they don't take good care of the pets

[Chrissy0277]

Is she 12 weeks or older?
If so take her to your vet for a bile acid test to check for possible livershunt, its fairly inexpensive. If your vet asks why just tell him you want to check and dont let them talk you out of it, some vets do when dogs dont show signs of LS. Some dogs can show no signs at all and still have it

[YorkieRose]

One of the problems with liver shunts is, it can skip generations then pop up..some breeders think you can test the parents and if they are free of a shunt then all is well..well it ain't!
I hate everything to do with Liver shunt...the bile acid tests are not reliable at all..but better then nothing. Far too many Yorkies fail the tests, but have perfectly normal livers..many things can interfer with a bile acid reading...we have a YT member who had her bitch spayed because of failed bile acid tests and other liver tests..only to discover the bitch had a perfectly normal liver.

[Chrissy0277]

Did the woman who had her dog spayed do further testing to rule the shunt out?

Did you know Maltese almost always fail the bile acid testing? I forget the reason why but something with them causes the bad results but their liver is almost always fine

[yorkieusa]

Originally Posted by Chrissy0277

Im curious what would you call a mild case?

Im not trying to sound nasty, Im just curious.

http://livershunt.org/

That she is controlling it by diet at this time and hopefully she won't ever need surgery.

[Marcellacml]

well shes already spayed she has no signs but i'm paranoid like that

[Mardelin]

Originally Posted by Marcellacml

well shes already spayed she has no signs but i'm paranoid like that

Spaying doesn't have anything to do with Liver Shunt. If you're concerned, have the Bile Acids tested.

[Mardelin]

Originally Posted by YorkieRose

One of the problems with liver shunts is, it can skip generations then pop up..some breeders think you can test the parents and if they are free of a shunt then all is well..well it ain't!
I hate everything to do with Liver shunt...the bile acid tests are not reliable at all..but better then nothing. Far too many Yorkies fail the tests, but have perfectly normal livers..many things can interfer with a bile acid reading...we have a YT member who had her bitch spayed because of failed bile acid tests and other liver tests..only to discover the bitch had a perfectly normal liver.

You're absolutely correct. Just because a dog's bile acid tests pass with flying colors, it does not mean they aren't a carrier. The DNA markers have not been identified as yet. From what I understand they are getting close.