Assessment of two tests for the diagnosis of canine hyperadrenocorticism

Small Animal Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, State University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The low-dose dexamethasone suppression test and the urinary corticoid/creatinine ratio were assessed in 166 and 150 dogs, respectively, for their value in the diagnosis of hyperadrenocorticism. The diagnostic accuracy of the low-dose dexamethasone suppression test was 0.83, with a 95 per cent confidence interval from 0.76 to 0.88. The urinary corticoid/creatinine ratio had a diagnostic accuracy of 0.91 with a 95 per cent confidence interval from 0.85 to 0.95. The high predictive value of a negative corticoid/creatinine ratio (0.98; confidence interval 0.80 to 1.00) and the low cost of this test makes it preferable for screening purposes to the low-dose dexamethasone suppression test for which the predictive value of a negative test was calculated as 0.5g (confidence interval 0.43 to 0.73).

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