Between 1986 and 1995, 72 cases of uremia were diagnosed from 1,623 (4.43%) dogs necropsied at the Veterinary Pathology Lab of the "Universidade Federal de Santa Maria", RS, Brazil. Clinical signs of uremia were reported in 58 dogs (80.55%) and included mainly vomitus, anorexia, diarrhea and depression. Extrarenal lesions of uremia were most evident, in decreasing order of frequency, in the following organ systems: alimentary, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine and skeletal. More frequently observed lesions were uremic gastropathy (79.16%) and pneumopathy (49.27%), and mural endocarditis of the left atrium associated with degenerative arteriopathy of the coronary vessels (34.72%). Seventy (16.27%) out of 430 dogs with primary renal lesions had uremia. Two (14.2%) out of 14 dogs with obstruction of the urinary flow developed post-renal uremia. No case of pre-renal uremia was diagnosed. The renal lesions which induced uremia in the dogs were glomerulonephritis, acute tubular nephrosis, interstitial nephritis, infarction, bilateral cystadenocarcinoma, and amyloidosis. The age of affected dogs varied from 2 months to 12 years. The acute and subacute renal lesions were more frequent in dogs up to 5 years and the chronic renal lesions were more frequent in dogs from 6 to 12 years of age.
uremia; renal failure; canine diseases
