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A new route forward

  • Poodle illustration

    A new route forward

    Steven Friedenberg maps out a novel way to track and treat Addison’s disease in dogs


     

    Illustration by Hairun Li

Steven Friedenberg, DVM, PhD, DACVECC, is getting a step ahead of Addison’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that most often affects Standard Poodles and Portuguese Water Dogs. He and his team of researchers are borrowing a technique from human medicine to predict which dogs are most likely to develop the disease—a disorder in which the adrenal glands don't produce enough hormones—before they show clinical signs. Their approach has never been applied to dogs before.

Steven Friedenberg smiles at the camera
Steven Friedenberg

Friedenberg’s PhD focused on canine genetics. But he has found that researching the genetics of Addison’s disease is challenging because there are many genes involved and many interactions between them and the environment. As an alternative, he is focusing on trying to detect autoantibodies as a marker for the disease in dogs. Antibodies help fight against infections, but in certain disease states autoantibodies can develop against a dog’s own tissues, cells, or organs. In Addison’s disease, Friedenberg believes that these autoantibodies may be targeted against the outer layers of the adrenal glands.

“In many cases for humans and dogs, autoantibodies can be markers for disease,” says Friedenberg, “but this hasn’t been well studied in dogs with Addison’s.” The team hopes to use the autoantibodies for an immunological test to know which dogs to watch closely for development of the disease. There is evidence of such a test being 90% effective in predicting Addison’s disease among humans. “It will also give us insights into the mechanisms that cause the disease,” says Friedenberg. 

For dogs, Addison’s disease often results in lethargy, lack of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, bloody stools, an irregular heart rate, and low body temperature. “Dogs will come in to the ER pretty sick from Addison’s disease,” says Friedenberg. “But it’s one of those diseases where we can rescue them from the brink and make them better for the long term.”

The three-year grant for this research was supplied by the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation (AKC-CHF). Friedenberg’s team is a year and a half into the grant. In early August, Friedenberg traveled to St. Louis, MO, to present his team’s progress at the AKC-CHF Conference.