La cardiomiopatia aritmogena del ventricolo destro nel Bulldog Inglese: Una patologia emergente

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy is a familial heart disease characterized by a progressive replacement of myocardium with fibro-fatty tissue. These structural changes are accompanied by functional changes with the onset of ventricular arrhythmias and myocardial dysfunction. In veterinary medicine, this disease has been reported sporadically in several canine and feline breeds, while in the Boxer breed the ultra-structural alterations, genetic transmission, and clinical and instrumental findings of the disease have been extensively described. Recently arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy has also been recognized in the English Bulldog, with distinctive features such as the presence of monomorphic ventricular tachycardia with left bundle branch block morphology and an incessant behaviour and the presence, in two thirds of affected dogs, of a segmental form with aneurysms of the right ventricular outflow tract. The purpose of the present manuscript is to describe clinical and instrumental findings of this disease in English Bulldog comparing them with those reported in Boxer breed dogs.