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| Dog's bladder |
In a recent study (now advertised to veterinarians via spiffy
Bayer-branded website,
68 dogs were tested with either high-dose Baytril (
enrofloxacin)
18-20mg/kg daily for three days, or Clavamox (
amoxicillin/clavulanate)
13.75 to 25 mg/kg orally twice daily for 14 days to treat uncomplicated
urinary tract infection. About 80% of dogs in both groups were cured.
Consider, we’re talking about 34 dogs in each group, 27 of them were cured, 7 were not.
This is not a large group of animals,
and I would be a lot happier if Bayer paid for a multi-centric trial
with a few thousand pets to confirm these results, but still…
FOR INSTANCE, QUESTIONS I HAVE:
1. How did they choose 3 days? What happens if you do 1 day? Or 7? Does that increase or decrease the success rate?
2. What happens if you replicate this study over a bunch more dogs – do we still expect 20% failure rate?
Regardless, the premise of the study is that if just as many dogs can
be cured in 3 days with a once-daily drug, as can be cured in 14 days
with a twice-daily drug, and considering that
only 34% of clients give exactly the right meds exactly when we prescribe them, this study holds promise.
Please feel free to share this blog post with your veterinarian!