Survival analysis of 219 dogs with hyperadrenocorticism attending primary care practice in England

Background Hyperadrenocorticism is an endocrine disease routinely encountered within primary care practice; however, few studies evaluating survival beyond diagnosis have studied this population. Methods This retrospective cohort study analysed the electronic patient records of 219 cases of hyperadrenocorticism from a sample of dogs attending primary care practices in England. Kaplan-Meier plots examined the cumulative survival and Cox proportional hazard regression modelling identified factors associated with the hazard of all-cause mortality. Results In the analysis, 179/219 (81.7 per cent) hyperadrenocorticism cases died during the study period with a median survival time from first diagnosis of 510 days (95% CI 412 to 618 days). Trilostane was used in 94.1 per cent of cases and differentiation between pituitary-dependent and adrenal-dependent disease was made in 20.1 per cent of cases. In the multivariable analysis, dogs weighing greater than or equal to 15 kg (HR 1.51, 95% CI 1.06 to 2.15, P=0.023) and those diagnosed greater than or equal to 13 years of age (HR 3.74, 95% CI 2.29 to 6.09, P