Ophtho Case Review: Entropion + Temporary Tacking [VIDEO]
Here’s a little cuteness to start your Friday!
This is some thing that I see quite commonly, and lots of people are unsure of what to do and what their options are for fixing this problem in such a young dog.
Zoom in on the picture of this dog’s eyes and see if you can figure out what is going on?
The puppy presented for squinting and rubbing and chronic, tearing from both eyes.
What do you see?
This puppy has entropion!
Entropion is the term for inward rolling of the eyelid margin, resulting in hair from the skin, contacting the corneal surface and causing chronic irritation. The concern overtime is for development of scar tissue and ulceration, but this is just frankly quite painful!
The treatment of choice in full grown or decently grown animals is permanent surgical correction. Depending on how severe the entropion is and how much growing the young dog still has to do, surgery is likely the best option. The surgical treatment of choice is called the Hotz-Celsus, but there are several different surgical procedures described for corrrection of entropion.
In young dogs who still have quite a lot of skull maturation to occur, I typically recommend temporary tacking sutures to evert the lids while the head continues to grow. I use nonabsorbable sutures and leave them in place until they fall out.
Sometimes the dogs will grow out of their entropion while these sutures hold the lids in place and many create a scar tissue tract that trains the lids outward. In some cases no permanent correction is needed in the future however, many of these dogs will still need permanent correction later on in life.
Here is an after picture of the same puppy.
Temporary Tacking Procedure:
I typically sedate these dogs but almost never do this with under general anesthesia unless the dog is too tiny or too aggressive to handle. I use a 22 g needle and 2-0 Ethilon.
#coolcases #videotutorials #practicepearls
About the Guide: Kristin Miller Fischer, DVM, DACVO
Dr. Kristin Fischer is a board-certified veterinary ophthalmologist. She graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in 2007 and completed a rotating general internship at VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital in Denver, CO. She then returned to Knoxville in 2009 to complete her ophthalmology residency at UTCVM. Dr. Fischer practices in South Carolina and works at Animal Eye Care of the Lowcountry. She loves the challenge of the complicated cases and the frequent connection between ophthalmology, internal medicine and neurology. Her favorite thing is returning sight to blind animals and then seeing them greet their families post-op!
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