Canine Chronic Hepatitis: Making Sense of a Complex Syndrome

Kelly Cairns, DVM, MS, DACVIM (SAIM)

Dr. Kelly Cairns graduated CSU veterinary school in 2004, completed a small animal internship at Cornell in 2005 and a small animal internal medicine residency at the Ohio State University in 2008, at which time she obtained Diplomate status. She enjoyed clinical practice as an internist and medical director of a multi-specialty/ER hospital until joining Thrive Pet Healthcare in January 2018. Dr. Cairns is Vice President of Medical Excellence and Education for 350+ hospitals. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Lincoln Memorial University College of Veterinary Medicine, President Elect of the Chicago Veterinary Medical Association, a Wedgewood advisory board member and a dvm360 editorial board member. She lectures internationally on profession-related wellness and leadership coaching topics, veterinary education models and internal medicine.

Overview:

This presentation reviews the basic work-up of liver diseases in dogs but then focuses deeper on chronic hepatitis in dogs. Specifically, the diagnosis, work-up, treatment, monitoring, and prognosis of canine chronic hepatitis will be discussed, including the ACVIM consensus statement on this specific condition. Then specific case based and breed-specific examples will be presented.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to:

Outline a systematic diagnostic approach to canine liver disease, with emphasis on identifying and confirming chronic hepatitis.
Apply current consensus guidelines to the treatment, monitoring, and prognostication of dogs with chronic hepatitis.
Recognize breed-specific and case-based patterns of chronic hepatitis to support timely escalation of diagnostics and tailored management strategies.

This course is RACE-approved for 1.0 continuing education credits hours in jurisdictions that accept RACE-approval.