Non-healing corneal ulcers

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During an interview with dvm360 at the Fetch Kansas City Conference, Rachel Allbaugh, DVM, MS, DACVO, talked about the consultation calls that she receives the most often. At the top of the list: Non-healing corneal ulcers. Allbaugh outlined her typical approach for classification and treatment, as well as some things practitioners should avoid.

Below is a partial transcript

Rachel Allbaugh, DVM, MS, DACVO: Yeah, so we get a lot of consultation calls or requests to fit patients in urgently [for] dogs who are middle aged or older with non-healing corneal ulcers, and many times they are indolent ulcers. But it's important for veterinarians to rule out other causes of a non-healing ulcer, such as a conformational abnormality, a hair disorder, [or] infection.

Definitely, boxers and corgis are overrepresented in these indolent ulcers, and we will generally start with the cotton tipped applicator debridement. I definitely encourage vets who are comfortable to go ahead and do that, because you can get 30 to 40% of these dogs to heal with that alone. Many times we do need to do a more aggressive procedure, like a keratotomy, whether it be a grid keratotomy or a diamond burr that helps polish that wound bed and that can stimulate the healing, so that we get [roughly] 90% of these patients to heal.