Bilgiç Bengü, İskefli Onur, Pugliese Michela, Or Mehmet Erman
Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Istanbul 34320, Türkiye.
Veterinary Cardiology Center Veterinary Clinic, Üsküdar, Istanbul 34660, Türkiye.
Vet Sci. 2025 Jun 25;12(7):619. doi: 10.3390/vetsci12070619.
Vertebral Heart Score (VHS) is one of the commonly used methods for detecting cardiomegaly in dogs. However, this method has diagnostic limitations due to factors such as breed variations, orthopedic disorders, anatomical anomalies, and operator-dependent subjectivity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic utility of the Manubrium Heart Score (MHS) as an alternative to VHS in the assessment of cardiomegaly in dogs. A total of 490 dogs were classified and grouped based on body weight and cardiac health status. On the right lateral thoracic radiographs, MHS was calculated as the ratio of manubrium length (ML) to the sum of the long-axis heart length (cLAL) and short-axis heart length (cSAL). Similarly, VHS was determined. A positive correlation between VHS and MHS, as well as between ML and cSAL/cLAL, were observed in all groups except for the group of medium sized dogs with heart diseases. No correlations were found between MHS and LA or the LA/Ao ratio. In pairwise comparisons of VHS and MHS between heart-diseased and healthy dogs, the mean VHS showed a statistically significant difference in heart-diseased dogs ( < 0.001), and not across all groups ( > 0.05). MHS may not consider a useful method as an alternative to VHS.
椎体心脏评分（VHS）是检测犬类心脏肥大常用的方法之一。然而，由于品种差异、骨科疾病、解剖异常以及操作者主观因素等，该方法存在诊断局限性。本研究的目的是评估柄状突心脏评分（MHS）作为VHS的替代方法在评估犬类心脏肥大中的诊断效用。总共490只犬根据体重和心脏健康状况进行分类和分组。在右侧胸廓X光片上，MHS计算为柄状突长度（ML）与心脏长轴长度（cLAL）和短轴长度（cSAL）之和的比值。同样，也确定了VHS。除患有心脏病的中型犬组外，在所有组中均观察到VHS与MHS之间以及ML与cSAL/cLAL之间呈正相关。未发现MHS与左心房（LA）或LA/主动脉（Ao）比值之间存在相关性。在患心脏病犬与健康犬之间对VHS和MHS进行成对比较时，平均VHS在患心脏病犬中显示出统计学上的显著差异（<0.001），但在所有组中并非如此（>0.05）。MHS可能不是一种可替代VHS的有用方法。
