[AdonisRotts]

Just out of curiosity I called my ortho vet and asked him a couple of questions this morning. I was curious about whether he knew the results of that study posted to OFA's website, he said that he has the actual study somewhere in the office. He claims that it was very hastily done, in response to an increasing urge to change from using one film to using 2-3 films (like most other countries do). He said that OFA is very persistent about not changing it's protocol which is aggrevating alot of ortho vets. He said that the study does not account for whether ED was graded I, II, or III and whether it was DJD, OCD, UAP, or FCP, when calculating the averages. He said that study might have some weight if they had done it correctly. By that he meant that it should have been calculated by doing
normal x normal
normal x grade I
normal x grade II
normal x grade III
grade I x grade I
grade I x grade II
etc, etc. It then should have been recalculate using the designator OCD, FCP, etc.
He then went on to say that he is concerned that it may overwhelmingly decrease the breeding population. He said that at last figures only 60% passed elbows (of those submitted, alot of people still don't do elbows), and comparing that to he said only about 1 in 5 OFA screenings do the owners request elbows too. He said you can pull the data regarding # of hips submitted vs elbows. He said anytime you greatly decrease the population that much there is going to be a genetic drift toward some other problem. He said that he thinks at this point there should be some sort of guidelines/criteria to help breeders manage breeding affected individuals and making better choices.
He also said that you have to emphasize that you can not compare doing hip x-rays to elbows, it is like comparing apples and oranges especially when it comes to DJD.
Most of you know that hips are fairly clear cut, they generally weight most of the eval on joint conformation which can easily be seen 1 dimensionally on film. Elbows on the other hand are evaluated on joint density, etc which can be affected by film density and shadowing, along with standard conformational aspects. (I can tell you that from personal experience reading human x-rays) He jokingly laughed and said, "It only takes a tiny faint cloud to fail and elbow, which could easily be human error."
His final point was that there are lot more enviromental factors which affect elbows that should always be taken into consideration. He said that he hoped that some of the breed clubs would help urge OFA to re-evaluate its protocol regarding elbows or help establish proper guidelines which would not jeopardize the genetic heath of a breed. He pointed out that you should not only look at phenotypic ratios but genotypic. He said that he has seen people breed dogs whose elbows were clear but sibs graded II or III and feel justified because they bred to a clear, when they would have been better off breeding to someone with grade I that sibs were clear or I as well.
Okay that was enough of my big mouth on the subject. My vet is very interested in elbows and he is VERY interested in seeing the long term outcome of (including overall health) the various breeds.