Evaluation of clinical, laboratory, and electrophoretic profiles for diagnosis of malnutrition in hospitalized dogs

Malnutrition is a major factor associated with increased rates of mortality and readmission, longer hospital stays, and greater health care spending. Recognizing malnourished or at-risk animals allows for nutritional intervention and improved prognosis. This study evaluated the association between clinical, laboratory, and electrophoretic variables and the nutritional status (NS) of hospitalized dogs in order to generate a profile of the sick dog and to facilitate the diagnosis of malnutrition. We divided 215 dogs into groups according to the severity of the underlying disease and we determined the clinical NS based on the assessment of the body condition score and the muscle mass score. The NS was classified as clinically well nourished, clinical moderate malnutrition, or clinical severe malnutrition. Statistical analyses were conducted by using the chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test; the Kruskal-Wallis test was used for continuous variables. A strong association was found between malnutrition and the severity of the underlying disease. In hospitalized dogs, low body mass index values, anemia, low hemoglobin concentrations, high fibrinogen concentrations, decreased albumin fraction, and increased gamma-globulin fraction (in electrophoresis) were associated with malnutrition, reinforcing the classification of poor NS. However, the skin and coat characteristics, the total number of lymphocytes, blood glucose, cholesterol, and total protein concentration were not found to be good predictors of NS.