bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.25.964262; this version posted March 13, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. 1 1 Running Title: Prevalence, popularity and volatility of congenital heart diseases in dogs 2 CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY OF CONGENITAL HEART DISEASES IN DOGS: 3 PREVALENCE, POPULARITY AND VOLATILITY THROUGHOUT TWENTY 4 YEARS OF CLINICAL PRACTICE 5 Brambilla PG1*, Polli M1, Pradelli D2, Papa M2, Rizzi R1, Bagardi M1, Bussadori C2 6 1Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Milan, Via dell’Università n. 6, 26900 Lodi (LO) - Italy 7 2Department of Cardiology, Clinica Veterinaria Gran Sasso, Milan, Italy 8 9 10 11 12 *Corresponding Author 13 E-mail:
[email protected] 14 Orcid number: 0000-0003-4255-555X 15 16 17 18 Conflict of interest 19 The authors declare no conflict of interests 20 21 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.25.964262; this version posted March 13, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. 2 22 Abstract 23 The epidemiology of Congenital Heart Diseases (CHDs) has changed over the past twenty years. 24 We evaluated the prevalence of CHDs in the population of dogs recruited in a single referral center (RC); 25 compared the epidemiological features of CHDs in screened breeds (Boxers) versus nonscreened (French and 26 English Bulldogs and German Shepherds), investigated the association of breeds with the prevalence of CHDs, 27 determined the popularity and volatility of breeds over a 20-year period; and analysed the trends of the most 28 popular breeds in the overall population of new-born dogs registered in the Italian Kennel Club from 1st January 29 1997 to 31st December 2017.