Pectinate ligament dysplasia and glaucoma in Flat Coated Retrievers. II. Assessment of prevalence and heritability

Pectinate ligament dysplasia (PLD) in dogs is a congenital ocular abnormality affecting the iridocorneal angle, the presence of which may be associated with adult-onset primary glaucoma. This study demonstrates a significant association between PLD and glaucoma in Flat Coated Retrievers, and also a higher prevalence of PLD in Flat Coated Retrievers compared with other breeds. It is shown that the association between PLD and glaucoma was robust and not due to a small increase in PLD with age. There was also a significant association between PLD in offspring and parents and, using the offspring–parents regression, the heritability of PLD was estimated as approximately 0.7. As glaucoma is significantly related to PLD, glaucoma may also be heritable. Thus, glaucoma can be controlled by gonioscopic examination and elimination of animals with a high degree of PLD from a breeding program. Breeding from only those animals with a moderate or low PLD value or score should limit the expected prevalence of glaucoma in the resulting population to < 0.2%. The preceding study describes in detail the PLD survey, gonioscopic technique and some initial results obtained prior to this epidemiological investigation.