A retrospective study of prognostic factors in 29 dogs with surgically treated thymic epithelial tumors.

Client-owned dogs (N = 127) were divided into 3 categories: those with postliminary meniscal tears, those with no meniscal tears for a minimum of 2 y post-tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO), and those with meniscal tears at the time of TPLO. The latter 2 groups were randomly selected using a random-number generator. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify associations between variables. Post-hoc power was calculated. The objective was to identify risk factors leading to meniscal tears at time of TPLO and postliminary meniscal tears. Forty-four out of the 2158 cases 44 (2%) were identified as having postliminary meniscal tears following TPLO surgery. For each increase in year of age, there was a 23.9% decrease in odds of having an initial meniscal tear. Each additional kilogram of body weight increased the odds of an initial meniscal tear by 2.7%. Preoperative tibial plateau angle (TPA) and postoperative TPA did not reach statistical significance. Postliminary meniscal tear incidence was 2.0%. Weight and age were statistically significant in contributing to meniscal tears at the time of TPLO. Only blade size was a statistically significant factor in contribution to postliminary meniscal tears.