Introduction: Acute phase proteins (APPs) are proteins that change after an injury or an inflammatory condition occurs, and are often used in the diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and prognosis of different diseases in dogs. This study aimed to determine whether APPs (C-reactive protein [CRP], haptoglobin, fibrinogen, ferritin, iron, albumin and total iron binding capacity [TIBC]) could be used as early diagnostic markers in dogs involved in road traffic accidents (RTA), and their prognostic value for mortality.

Methods: A retrospective cohort of 420 dogs was used, of which 210 dogs were in the exposed group involved in RTAs. These dogs were evaluated within 24 h of trauma, and compared against equivalent unexposed dogs that had been presented to the clinic with various illnesses, but with no history of any trauma. Unexposed dogs were selected from all dogs presented to the institution over the same timeframe as the exposed dogs (between the 7 December, 2009, and 7 October, 2018). These dogs were individually matched to the group of exposed dogs for age (±6 months), sex, sexual status and breed.

Results: The study demonstrated that haptoglobin (p<0.0001), fibrinogen (p<0.0001), and ferritin (p<0.0001) are the most efficient early biomarkers in predicting dogs involved in RTA. The results showed significant differences (p=0.0074) in CRP concentrations between the exposed and unexposed groups of dogs involved in RTA. Furthermore, the results showed that serum ferritin (p=0.0068), albumin (p<0.0001), and TIBC (p<0.0001) are the most efficient early biomarkers predicting mortality of dogs within 28-days of trauma.

Conclusions: CRP is the most evaluated APP in dogs; however, other APPs are available and the simultaneous use of several analytes that present different kinetic patterns after trauma is as a promising diagnostic and prognostic tool, as demonstrated in the present study. Ferritin, albumin, and TIBC are correlated with mortality, with albumin and TIBC producing the best results in the ROC curves of our study.