Canine epilepsy and dyskinesia consortium

Canine epilepsy and dyskinesia consortium                        3rd August 2020

Rationale and goal

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disease in dogs and affects all breeds of dogs. Epilepsy can be caused by many reasons, including genetic and environmental factors and trauma. Current epilepsy research is progressing in both clinical and molecular etiologies but more harmonized approach is required to facilitate breakthroughs. Towards this goal, an international group of researchers called International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force (www.ivetf.org) has been established. As a part of these efforts, Dr. Lohi group together with Dr Fischer’s group have recently developed a new epilepsy and dyskinesia survey for joint consortium use to collect comprehensive and harmonized clinical data for better diagnostics, care and molecular research. So, the goal is to harmonize epilepsy phenotyping in dogs across breeds and worldwide to facilitate clinical and molecular research with large and well-established study cohorts.

Data sharing between consortium members

Petsofi platform enables dual functions by providing opportunity for immediate online veterinary care and by collecting data for research purposes. Data is collected on the Petsofi’s secured server. Petsofi has licensed the survey from University of Helsinki with an agreement that the accumulated data will be shared for research purposes with owner’s consent. Owner’s consent for the sharing of the data with the University of the Helsinki and the entire epilepsy consortium will be asked from the owners prior to starting to complete the survey. Upon consent, Dr Lohi’s research group will get a copy of the data and shares it with consortium members according to the principles of the consortium agreement, consortium members have committed and signed. Data will be used only for anonymized peer reviewed research purposes.

Current consortium members

The list of active and signed consortium members can be found here. New members may join and previous ones leave. Active members can have access to the copy of the anonymized data for research purposes according to the consortium principles.

The list of current epilepsy consortium members: