The EPIC Trial has been a game changer. Now we know that dogs with stage B2 mitral valve disease (grade 3/6 or louder murmurs and significant cardiomegaly) benefit from pimobendan. Therefore, these dogs need an echocardiogram to determine if they need treatment: it’s no longer adequate to wait until they show clinical signs. And its no good just guessing that they do.
As ever, there are barriers to translating this into practice:
Having the right equipment and experience to do it – we offer training days so that you can scan well enough to do this. See the images and use the calculator on our website to help you do this www.heartvets.co.uk/epic-trial.
Getting into the habit of it – often a hurdle. We need every vet in the practice to be able to look a client in the eye and explain why a scan is needed. Just treating on the basis of the presence of a murmur is a bad idea.
We want more dogs better treated – so contact Heart Vets if you would like to come on a training day, or have an in-house training session. Also, we can come to your practice and do a screening session (minimum three cases), which provides a more cost-effective route to specialist care whilst keeping the work in-house.
Call 0800 9994333 or email admin@heartvets.co.uk to book a session.
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