From episode 153 on the Medicine Feed. With Prof Jill Maddison.
You already know about the common non-liver causes of increased ALP, like bone isomers in young animals, steroid or phenobarb-induced ALP in dogs, and of course those vague 'old-with-high-ALP-but-otherwise-healthy' dogs. But here a few ALP facts that are new to me from our episode on interpreting liver bloods with the queen of clinical reasoning, Prof. Jill Maddison:
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Breed:
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Healthy huskies can have an ALP of over a 1000 when they’re 6 months old, and still have it sitting at around 700 at 1 year old - WAY over normal young dog ALP.
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Scottish Terriers can also have abnormally high ALP for no apparent reason.
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Cats
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The half life of ALP in dogs is 2-3 days. Cats, in contrast, get rid of it way faster, with a half-life of just 6 hours. This means that if ALP is up in a cat you should definitely take notice. It probably has a liver problem. Except if it has:
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Hyperthyroidism. HyperT can increase ALP in cats. Interestingly, the suggestion is that it’s not hepatic ALP, but the bone isomer that increases. Or:
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Haemolysis. which can sometimes increase ALP. (We don’t know why.)
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