Long-Term Evaluation of Canine Perianal Fistula Disease Treated With Exclusive Fish and Potato Diet and Surgical Excision

Dysbiosis in a canine model of human fistulizing Crohn's disease

Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory condition caused by the loss of mucosal tolerance toward the commensal microbiota. On average, 29.5% and 42.7% CD patients experience perianal complications at 10 and 20 y after diagnosis, respectively. Perianal CD (pCD) result in high disease burden, diminished quality of life, and elevated health-care costs. Overall pCD are predictors of poor long-term outcomes. Animal models of gut inflammation have failed to fully recapitulate the human manifestations of fistulizing CD. Here, we evaluated dogs with spontaneous canine anal furunculosis (CAF), a disease with clinical similarities to pCD, as a surrogate model for understanding the microbial contribution of human pCD pathophysiology. By comparing the gut microbiomes between dogs suffering from CAF (CAF dogs) and healthy dogs, we show CAF-dog microbiomes are either very dissimilar (dysbiotic) or similar (healthy-like), yet unique, to healthy dog's microbiomes. Compared to healthy or healthy-like CAF microbiomes, dysbiotic CAF microbiomes showed an increased abundance of Bacteroides vulgatus and Escherichia coli and a decreased abundance of Megamonas species and Prevotella copri. Our results mirror what have been reported in previous microbiome studies of patients with CD; particularly, CAF dogs exhibited two distinct microbiome composition: dysbiotic and healthy-like, with determinant bacterial taxa such as E. coli and P. copri that overlap what it has been found on their human counterpart. Thus, our results support the use of CAF dogs as a surrogate model to advance our understanding of microbial dynamics in pCD.

Adipose-Derived Stem Cells Are an Efficient Treatment for Fistula-in-ano of Japanese Rabbit

Fistula-in-ano (FIA, anal fistula) treatment remains a surgical challenge for coloproctologists. Adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSCs) are a new frontier in the treatment of FIA. In this study, we established a FIA model of Japanese rabbit and evaluated the effect of four treatments on fistula healing: ADSC transplantation, acellular small intestinal submucosa (ASIS), noncutting seton, and PBS as negative control. High-throughput RNA sequencing was also performed to investigate the anal tissue (normal and ADSC treatment group) expression profile of mRNA. Our data showed that ADSC treatment had the shortest time to promote fistula healing compared to the other treatments, and fistula filled with new adipose tissue and muscle cells without scar. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of RNA-seq data showed that the differential genes are enriched in system development and animal organ development. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that ADSCs rapidly promote fistula healing through differentiation, a promising stem cell therapy for FIA. The rabbit is an effective animal model for evaluating FIA therapeutic options.

Is treating anal furunculosis with 5 mg/kg ciclosporin once daily the optimal dosing schedule?

Critically Appraised Topics (CATs) are a standardised, succinct summary of research evidence organised around a clinical question, and a form of evidence synthesis used in the practice of evidence-based medicine (EBM) and evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM). Access to CATs enables clinicians to incorporate evidence from the scientific literature into clinical practice and they have been used to teach EBVM at the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences since 2011. CATs from Bristol university will be regularly published in the Clinical Decision Making section of Veterinary Record. The first CAT was published in VR, January 30, 2016, vol 178, pp 118-119.