ACVECC Veterinary Committee on Trauma Registry Report 2022-2023

To report summative data from the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Veterinary Committee on Trauma (ACVECC-VetCOT) registry, with further summary reporting based on geographic region and human population density.

Multi-institutional registry data report, January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023.

Twenty-two Veterinary Trauma Centers (VTCs) identified and verified by ACVECC-VetCOT.

Dogs and cats with evidence of traumatic injury presented to contributing hospitals.

Data were input into a web-based data capture system (Research Electronic Data Capture) by data entry personnel. Patient data on demographics, trauma type, preadmission care, trauma severity assessment at presentation, key laboratory parameters, interventions, and outcome were collected. Descriptive statistics were performed for each species reported.

Twenty-two VTCs in North America and the United Kingdom contributed data to the VetCOT registry between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2023. A total of 9,820 cases (8,130 dog, 1,690 cat) were reported. The top three causes of trauma in dogs were penetrating bite wounds (35% of all dog trauma cases), vehicular strikes (17%), and lacerations (12%); in cats, unknown blunt trauma (22% of all cat trauma cases), penetrating bite wounds (20%), and falls from heights (14%) were the leading causes of trauma. Prevalence of trauma types across geographic regions was similar except for porcupine quilling, which occurred primarily in the Northeast of the United States. Vehicular trauma and porcupine quilling occurred commonly in rural VTCs, whereas falls from heights and nonpenetrating bite wounds occurred commonly in urban VTCs. Survival to discharge remained high in both dogs and cats (93.1% and 83.7%, respectively).

The ACVECC-VetCOT registry provides a foundation for retrospective evaluation of traumatic injury in dogs and cats. It has already contributed to the production of numerous publications assessing relationships between demographics, trauma etiology, and trauma severity with clinical outcomes.