Clinical findings, rhinoscopy and histological evaluation of 54 dogs with chronic nasal disease

Nasal diseases are very common in dogs and rhinoscopy is often required for a definitive diagnosis. Rhinoscopy, while superficial in nature, can guide the clinician to the final diagnosis. In this study, rhinoscopy was performed on 54 dogs with symptoms of chronic nasopharyngeal disease. The endoscopic diagnosis of neoplasia or chronic nasal inflammation was validated with histological examination of pathological samples, in order to evaluate the degree of concordance between endoscopic findings and histological diagnosis. The agreement between endoscopy and histology was tested by application of Cohen's kappa coefficient. We conclude that correlation between endoscopic results and histological diagnosis, expressed by a Cohen's kappa coefficient of 0.73, is only possible with a constant cooperation between the clinician and the pathologist.