SRM – Steroid Responsive Meningitis
This disease is also called Stiff Beagle Disease, Immune Mediated Meningitis or Beagle Pain Syndrome; and associated with Ateritis and Vasculitis in some texts. There are more breeds than beagles affected by this condition, and I have seen several different ones. Bernese Mountain Dogs seem to get it too but beagles are “over-represented” as a breed when the number reported are compared to the percentage of beagles in the canine population.
As a Health Coordinator for the breed I get more calls about this than any other condition and it seems to cause more distress to the owners than anything else since it debilitates so much. SRM is more commonly first seen in the young beagle under one year of age and repeated bouts of the disease flare up until about 2 to 2 ½ years when they “grow” out of it. Occasionally cases are seen in older beagles.
Symptoms include lethargy, neck pain, reluctance to eat or drink, reluctance to exercise, fever, bad temper(due to pain), and sometimes gastro-intestinal upset. There is not currently a test for the disease in an apparently healthy beagle and the only definitive test during illness is a spinal tap taking fluid from the spine just behind the skull. Blood results often show a rise in white blood cells but this in itself doesn't diagnose the condition. Dogs with SRM show abnormal spinal fluid during the illness with white blood cells present at high levels.
The only treatment which works is a course of steroids with Prednisolone being commonly used in the UK. A high dose is used to start with and the dose is tapered down. Some beagles may get a recurrence when the dose drops below a certain level but most can be weaned off. Recurrent bouts can be rapidly treated the same way and within 24 hours your bouncy beagle is returned.
The cause of SRM is unknown at the moment, but there is discussion about there being an underlying genetic predisposition in the breed for this immune response to occur. This is unproven but the suspicion is there because of the high numbers of beagles seen with it compared to other breeds of dog. Possible triggers or causes to investigate include: Environment: 1) Vaccination. Most cases are not seen immediately after vaccination but we need more information on timing, vaccines used by people and the regime used.2) Feeding-this is very varied but again information on the diet may throw up some common factors.3) Worming-types of wormer may be triggers? Other Illnesses: There may be an immune response which is over-reactive in the beagle and results in SRM as a secondary problem when the body is combating other disease. Most of the reports I get appear to come out of the blue without something else being diagnosed but there might be a trigger as yet not detected.
Genetic or Congenital Effect: 1) Congenital means literally “born with” and can be caused by something which affected the pups in utero or during birth. This could be for instance if the mother was ill during pregnancy. If a caesarean was required or the birth was difficult the pup could be damaged or affected in some way. There is some suggestion that lack of oxygen at birth might trigger epilepsy in children and certainly there seems to a link with cerebral palsy and difficult birth. 2) Genetic implies the condition can be passed on to offspring. Genetic disease can be carried as a simple gene or inherited as a multifactorial condition. Simple genes are either recessive or dominant. With dominant conditions there needs only be one copy in an individual to show the condition which can come from either parent. With recessive conditions two copies need to be present and one comes from each parent. Multifactorial conditions require several genes present and these can come from both parents.
In order to find more out about SRM I have contacted the Animal Health Trust at Newmarket. They are involved with a lot of the genetic screening tests that have been produced to test pure bred dogs. My contact there Dr Catherine Mellersh suggests that in order for us to find out more about the disease they need information on dogs affected and whether litter mates or cohorts (companions or associates) are affected. So if more than one individual in a litter were affected this information would help. Pedigrees of such individuals will help elucidate whether there is any connection between affected beagles or not. These initial statistics would advise us whether it is worth doing any genetic study and may hopefully throw up any connection through environment or other disease.
Article written by Samantha Goldberg B.V.Sc. MRCVS
This disease is also called Stiff Beagle Disease, Immune Mediated Meningitis or Beagle Pain Syndrome; and associated with Ateritis and Vasculitis in some texts. There are more breeds than beagles affected by this condition, and I have seen several different ones. Bernese Mountain Dogs seem to get it too but beagles are “over-represented” as a breed when the number reported are compared to the percentage of beagles in the canine population.
As a Health Coordinator for the breed I get more calls about this than any other condition and it seems to cause more distress to the owners than anything else since it debilitates so much. SRM is more commonly first seen in the young beagle under one year of age and repeated bouts of the disease flare up until about 2 to 2 ½ years when they “grow” out of it. Occasionally cases are seen in older beagles.
Symptoms include lethargy, neck pain, reluctance to eat or drink, reluctance to exercise, fever, bad temper(due to pain), and sometimes gastro-intestinal upset. There is not currently a test for the disease in an apparently healthy beagle and the only definitive test during illness is a spinal tap taking fluid from the spine just behind the skull. Blood results often show a rise in white blood cells but this in itself doesn't diagnose the condition. Dogs with SRM show abnormal spinal fluid during the illness with white blood cells present at high levels.
The only treatment which works is a course of steroids with Prednisolone being commonly used in the UK. A high dose is used to start with and the dose is tapered down. Some beagles may get a recurrence when the dose drops below a certain level but most can be weaned off. Recurrent bouts can be rapidly treated the same way and within 24 hours your bouncy beagle is returned.
The cause of SRM is unknown at the moment, but there is discussion about there being an underlying genetic predisposition in the breed for this immune response to occur. This is unproven but the suspicion is there because of the high numbers of beagles seen with it compared to other breeds of dog. Possible triggers or causes to investigate include: Environment: 1) Vaccination. Most cases are not seen immediately after vaccination but we need more information on timing, vaccines used by people and the regime used.2) Feeding-this is very varied but again information on the diet may throw up some common factors.3) Worming-types of wormer may be triggers? Other Illnesses: There may be an immune response which is over-reactive in the beagle and results in SRM as a secondary problem when the body is combating other disease. Most of the reports I get appear to come out of the blue without something else being diagnosed but there might be a trigger as yet not detected.
Genetic or Congenital Effect: 1) Congenital means literally “born with” and can be caused by something which affected the pups in utero or during birth. This could be for instance if the mother was ill during pregnancy. If a caesarean was required or the birth was difficult the pup could be damaged or affected in some way. There is some suggestion that lack of oxygen at birth might trigger epilepsy in children and certainly there seems to a link with cerebral palsy and difficult birth. 2) Genetic implies the condition can be passed on to offspring. Genetic disease can be carried as a simple gene or inherited as a multifactorial condition. Simple genes are either recessive or dominant. With dominant conditions there needs only be one copy in an individual to show the condition which can come from either parent. With recessive conditions two copies need to be present and one comes from each parent. Multifactorial conditions require several genes present and these can come from both parents.
In order to find more out about SRM I have contacted the Animal Health Trust at Newmarket. They are involved with a lot of the genetic screening tests that have been produced to test pure bred dogs. My contact there Dr Catherine Mellersh suggests that in order for us to find out more about the disease they need information on dogs affected and whether litter mates or cohorts (companions or associates) are affected. So if more than one individual in a litter were affected this information would help. Pedigrees of such individuals will help elucidate whether there is any connection between affected beagles or not. These initial statistics would advise us whether it is worth doing any genetic study and may hopefully throw up any connection through environment or other disease.
Article written by Samantha Goldberg B.V.Sc. MRCVS
