Evaluation of Radiographic and Computed Tomographic Vertebral Heart Score in Healthy Tatra hound breed

Background: The vertebral heart score (VHS) is widely used to assess cardiac silhouette size in dogs, but breed-specific reference values are needed to improve diagnostic accuracy. No radiographic or computed tomographic (CT) VHS reference values have been established for the Tatra hound. This study aimed to determine breed-specific radiographic and CT VHS values in clinically healthy Tatra hound dogs, evaluate the influence of sex, age, and body weight, and assess the agreement and correlation between VHS measurements obtained from radiography and CT. Results: The mean RTG-VHS was 10.54 ± 0.51 (n = 43) and the mean CT-VHS was 10.36 ± 0.44 (n = 25), with no significant difference between the two modalities (paired t-test, p = 0.0576). No significant correlation was found between RTG-VHS and CT-VHS (r = –0.039). No sex-related differences were detected for either method, and VHS did not correlate with age or body weight. Conclusions: Radiographic and CT VHS values in healthy Tatra hound dogs show close agreement and no systematic difference, but the absence of a linear correlation indicates that individual RTG and CT measurements are not directly interchangeable. These results establish the first modality-specific VHS reference intervals for this breed and support the clinical use of VHS in Tatra hounds.