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Hi All,

Following up on my last message I am hoping that some of you may be able to help me with Holter analysis as might be applied to UK Boxers.  I have been reading of all your concerns about Holter testing and the problems of recognizing 'normal' dogs.  You have no idea how much I sympathize with your predicament and, given that we all face the same problems, I wonder if we jointly could find some sense in all this.

As a start, what is really known?  Someone mentioned Beagles being tested as normal dogs.  Have these results ever been published or presented anywhere? But it is really longitudinal studies I am after – the year by year results for individual dogs, ideally over a lifetime, with or without CM developing. Have any such results been published?  I am aware that BU is publishing results proffered by individual boxer owners, and these alone are quite useful.  I would expect that Kate Meurs and others must have some data but all this must be a drop in the ocean relative to the amount of annual Holter testing which would seem to be a big part of Boxer breeding in the States.

What I am suggesting is that for those interested I would be willing to collate results, in confidence, such that I could offer them back to you in a way that might help answer your questions on Holter results and also help me formulate ideas for dealing with CM here in the UK as geneticist to a newly-formed Boxer health committee.

I would not even need dogs' names, although there must be some way of identifying animals to update results.  However, the more information supplied, the more answers might be obtained.  The basic information for a preliminary study would therefore be identification/name, date of birth, date/age at testing (it does not have to be every single year), numbers of VPCs, doubles, triples, runs (whatever supplied) for as many years as possible, to death if possible and, in which case, cause of death.  The other information would also help interpretation could include that on relatives/progeny who have developed the disease.  I would stress that one is looking for information on potentially 'normal' animals as well as those with 'risky' and bad Holter scores.

How many of you keep such records and would make them available for collation/analysis in confidence?  How many of you are currently collecting such information and would supply this in future as it accumulates?

I well recognize the problems of such an investigation, such as the wobbles of Holter scoring and the existence of other factors that cause VPCs, but in groups of dogs these problems may be ironed to out to give us a picture of what is generally happening and what levels of increase in VPCs occur in normals as well as affecteds.

Bruce Cattanach
Email: bcattanach@steynmere.freeserve.co.uk