Inclusão da Razão De Ritis na avaliação laboratorial de cães com neoplasias cutâneas

Abstract

The ratio between the serum activities of aspartate and alanine aminotransferase (AST/ALT) provides a numerical value, for some time used in medicine to aid in the diagnosis and prognosis of liver and extrahepatic diseases. In veterinary medicine, few studies have been conducted to clarify its application and its relationship with different diseases. The present study aimed to evaluate the AST/ALT ratio in dogs with cytological and/or histopathological diagnoses of lymphoma, hemangiosarcoma, mast cell tumor, hepatoid tumor, and melanoma. The mean ratio evaluated in the groups studied was 0.87 (min. 0.082, max. 5.56), representing a value 74% higher than the average of healthy animals, found in another study (0.5). Animals diagnosed with lymphoma had a mean ratio of 1.68, in addition to the eight highest values found in the study, allowing the association of more expressive values of AST/ALT ratio to the diagnosis of lymphoma and showing the predictive capacity of the AST/ALT ratio. Additionally, an increase of one unit in the ratio represents a 3.5-fold increase in the chance of the dog having a diagnosis of lymphoma among the neoplasms. The averages found in the groups of animals diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma, melanoma, hepatoid tumor, and mast cell tumor were also higher than expected for healthy animals (0.77; 0.61; 0.57; 0.76). Thus, this study demonstrates the De Ritis ratio's effectiveness in the aid of differential diagnosis in veterinary oncological medicine.