Study links neck pain patterns to cervical disease in larger dogs: full analysis

A new retrospective study in Animals takes a closer look at cervical pain in non-chondrodystrophic dogs, a group that’s less well characterized than the chondrodystrophic breeds that dominate much of the disc disease literature. Reviewing 112 purebred dogs with C1-T2 lesions confirmed on MRI, the authors found that the presence of cervical pain was associated with clinical onset, neurologic group, and disease category, with intervertebral disc herniation emerging as the most common diagnosis in the cohort. (iris.unime.it)

That matters because cervical pain is common in practice, but it’s not especially specific. Earlier work has shown that among dogs presenting with cervical hyperesthesia, most do have cervical spinal disease, but a meaningful minority have multifocal disease, Chiari-like malformation/syringomyelia, brain disease, or even non-neurologic causes. In large and giant breeds with cervical myelopathy, pain can also be inconsistent: one prior MRI-based case series of disc-associated cervical spondylomyelopathy found cervical hyperesthesia in 49% of dogs, and only 14% presented with pain alone. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

In the new study, the case mix was broad. Intervertebral disc herniation accounted for 39.28% of diagnoses, inflammatory disease for 31.25%, neoplasia for 14.28%, disc-associated cervical spondylomyelopathy for 6.25%, infectious disease for 6.25%, and other causes for 2.69%. Labrador Retrievers were the most represented breed, followed by Golden Retrievers and American Staffordshire Terriers. The most commonly affected disc space among IVDH cases was C3-C4. The authors also found that dogs classified as neurologic grade 2 had higher odds of showing cervical pain than grade 3 dogs, and that in grade 2 cases, acute onset was much more strongly associated with neck pain than chronic onset. (iris.unime.it)

Those findings line up with a broader clinical pattern in cervical neurology: pain may be most visible when disease is earlier, more dynamic, or less overshadowed by severe motor deficits. Prior literature in disc-associated cervical spondylomyelopathy, for example, has shown that chronic presentations are common, multiple compression sites are frequent in older dogs, and pain is not universal even when MRI confirms clinically important disease. (link.springer.com)

Direct outside commentary on this specific paper was limited in the available literature, but related studies reinforce the clinical message that pain signs in cervical disease can be variable and sometimes misleading. A 2023 JAVMA report described cervical jerks as a clinical sign associated with cervical pain or myelopathy and found they were exclusively linked to cranial cervical intervertebral disc extrusion in that series, underscoring how pain-associated signs can point toward lesion localization, but not always toward a single disease process. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Why it matters: For veterinarians, the practical takeaway is that absence of marked neck pain shouldn’t lower suspicion for clinically important cervical myelopathy in a non-chondrodystrophic dog, especially if deficits are chronic or more advanced. At the same time, acute cervical pain in an ambulatory dog may still carry meaningful diagnostic signal, particularly for disc disease. The study also supports MRI-based workups in these patients, because the differential list remains wide, spanning disc herniation, inflammatory disease, neoplasia, infectious disease, and cervical spondylomyelopathy. (iris.unime.it)

The paper’s limits are also worth keeping in mind. This was a retrospective, single-center study, and the currently accessible abstracted material does not provide the full statistical detail that clinicians would want for case-level decision-making, including confidence intervals across all comparisons or management outcomes. Even so, it adds useful signal to a relatively underdescribed population and helps refine how clinicians interpret pain, onset, and neurologic grade together rather than in isolation. (iris.unime.it)

What to watch: The next step is prospective, multicenter work that tests whether these pain-pattern associations can improve triage, lesion prioritization on imaging, and treatment planning in non-chondrodystrophic dogs with suspected cervical disease. (iris.unime.it)