CelloVet makes its publication debut in Veterinary Surgery!

December 18, 2017

CelloVet has had its first mention in a peer-reviewed journal article in Veterinary Surgery. The article, written by Dr Marine Traverson, looks at the outcomes in dogs having portosytemic shunt attenuation using either cellophane banding or ameroid constrictors.

In this retrospective study of 49 dogs, 23 had ameroid constrictors placed and 26 were cellophane banded. The results found that there was no significant difference in post-op complications and both methods had similarly good outcomes long term outcomes.

Continued shunting was thought to occur in 9/26 cellophane banded dogs. In these dogs, 6/9 shunts had residual flow despite a 30-50% decrease in shunt vessel diameter whilst 3/6 had additional shunts appreciated that were not observed pre-operatively based on ultrasound. This finding is similar to that described recently by Nelson et al, who saw secondary shunts (not multiple acquired shunts) open up after attenuation was performed at the incorrect location. Nelson's findings, as with this paper's, highlight the importance of pre-op CT angiography and surgical planning.

In the 6/9 animals which had revision surgery, 2/6 were re-banded with cellophane (with complete occlusion achieved over 6 months), 2/6 had ameroids placed, 1/6 had complete suture ligation performed and 1/6 could not be revised due to fibrous adhesions between the cava and the shunt.

Long term outcomes were considered good to excellent with most dogs. and none had a poor outcome, irrespective of the surgical method used.

As the author notes, no one could be certain that the 'cellophane' used was indeed the real deal, as CelloVet cellophane is the only product available to the veterinary field which has actually been determined to be cellophane via spectroscopy.

In conclusion, this study showed cellophane banding to be non-inferior to ameroid ring constrictors with good to excellent long term outcomes possible with both techniques. Now, if they had only used CelloVet....