Differentiating Spontaneous from Drug-Induced Vascular Injury in the Dog

When vascular injury is observed in dogs used in preclinical toxicology studies, careful evaluation of the lesions is warranted, especially when differentiating drug-induced vascular changes from spontaneous findings, such as idiopathic canine polyarteritis. The clinical signs as well as the nature and distribution of lesions can often be distinguishing, as is the case with vasoactive drugs, including vasodilators and/or positive inotropes (hydralazine, minoxidil, endothelin receptor antagonists, and phosphodiesterase III inhibitors). For most types of vasodilator-induced vascular injury, the lesion is often restricted to coronary arteries, whereas in idiopathic canine polyarteritis, arterial lesions not only involve coronary arteries, but also medium to small arteries of other organs. In addition, the nature of the changes in vessels yields important clues. Medial and adventitial hemorrhage is generally associated with vasodilator-induced arterial lesion, whereas hemorrhage is generally absent in idiopathic polyarteritis. Although idiopathic canine polyarteritis can generally be differentiated from vasoactive-induced vascular injury in dogs, there are increasing incidences of this type of polyarteritis in dogs receiving any 1 of a number of unrelated classes of compounds, suggestive of an exacerbation of the spontaneous disease. Therefore, in order to differentiate drug-induced injury from idiopathic canine polyarteritis, it is critical that examination of the vascular pathology be conducted with good understanding of clinical, pharmacological, and mechanistic data associated with the drug.