Background: A 10 week-old intact female German shepherd dog was examined because of a heart murmur.
Methods: An echocardiogram revealed an extracardiac left-to-right shunt. An angiogram identified shunting between the aorta and the pulmonary artery in an unusual location.
Results: Thoracotomy was performed to better identify and correct the lesion; a tubular shunt between the left coronary artery and the pulmonary artery was found and ligated in a closed-heart procedure. The murmur resolved immediately upon ligation and the dog's heart size normalized over a period of several months after surgery.
Conclusion: In the dog, surgical correction of a coronary artery-pulmonary artery shunt can be performed without complications and can be associated with reversal of cardiac remodeling.
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