Is SARD an autoimmune or immune-mediated disease—and what’s the difference?
Technically, “immune-mediated” is a blanket term that covers three types of disease: 1) an allergic response that stems from some type of infection 2) antibodies that attack the patient’s own body—an autoimmune reaction— or 3) antibodies that develop on surface tissue in response to an outside irritant, such as “Farmer’s lung’. From past research done on SARDS, we know several things. To date, no bacterial, viral or protozoal infection has been associated with SARDS cases. This would suggest that SARD is not an infection-induced allergic response (item 1, above). In 2006, two independent studies found no autoimmune antibody activity specific to SARDS dogs.(1,2) This would suggest that SARDS is not an autoimmune disease. Finally, the retina, located in a virtually closed system, is not in contact with outside irritants, which rules out item 3 as a cause. By these criteria SARDS doesn’t qualify as an immune-mediated disease. Consequently, I suspect there may be some controversy in the ve
