Lesions of Spontaneous Subclinical Disease in Beagle Dogs

Abstract

Postmortem examination of 1000 commercially bred Beagle dogs used in 39 drug-safety evaluations showed a spectrum of concurrent lesions of spontaneous, subclinical disease that was used to develop a profile of lesions. This profile included the gross observations and the histopathologic findings in at least 36 different tissues from 647 of these dogs. The incidence, sex distribution, and etiologic classification of 77 different spontaneous lesions and the occurrence of four species of parasites are indicated. The profile provides a means of differentiating concurrent, spontaneous lesions from those induced by experimental procedures in ‘normal’ Beagle dogs.