GI12 - Concentrations of Fecal Carbohydrates in Dogs with Chronic Enteropathy

Abstract: Background – Carbohydrates are not required in the diet but provide nutritive value. A previous study showed increased fecal glucose and other selective carbohydrate concentrations in a subset of dogs with chronic enteropathy (CE) compared to healthy controls (HC) by untargeted mass spectrometry. Therefore, malabsorption was suspected to play a role in the pathogenesis of CE. However, fecal carbohydrate concentrations have not been confirmed by a targeted assay. Objective – Analytically validate a gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GCMS) assay for quantification of carbohydrates in feces and describe the concentrations of fecal carbohydrates in dogs with CE and HC.Animals – Feces from 15 CE and 8 HC dogs.Methods – Retrospective cross-sectional study. Fecal carbohydrates, including glucose, fructose, mannose, galactose, xylose, ribose, arabinose, and rhamnose were measured by GCMS. Mann-Whitney U tests were used to compare individual fecal carbohydrate concentrations between groups.Results – Median (range) coefficients of variation of intra- and inter-assay were 8.4% (1.2-24.4%) and 11.4% (1.5-25.7%). Fecal glucose concentration was significantly higher in CE (median [range]: 9,725 [1,994-25,757] ng/mg) compared to HC (4,362 [1,694-7,299]) dogs (P=.03). No significant differences between groups were found in the concentrations of the other carbohydrates. Conclusions and clinical importance – A targeted GCMS assay was analytically validated and confirmed previous untargeted metabolomics findings of increased fecal glucose concentration in dogs with CE. The cause and impact of increased fecal glucose in canine CE remains to be determined.