Cardiac lesions in cocker spaniel littermates resembling murine dystrophic cardiac calcinosis

This case report describes degenerative cardiac lesions with ventricular thrombosis in three five-day-old English cocker spaniel littermates.The dogs showed clinically apathy and cardiac murmur. They died spontaneously or were euthanized. Post mortem examination revealed right ventricular hypoplasia and right ventricular thrombosis in two of the three puppies. Histologically, degeneration and necrosis of the right ventricular myocardium was found associated with extensive dystrophic calcifications, fibrosis and ventricular thrombosis. Milder lesions were observed in the third dog characterized by multifocal, subendocardial, myocardial degeneration and necrosis with dystrophic calcifications. There was no evidence of an infectious cause of the lesions. The present findings were interpreted as dystrophic cardiac calcinosis-like lesion, a rare disorder that has only been described so far in certain mice strains and human infants.