Fig. 3

Investigation of the effect of an underlying disease in dogs with intervertebral disc herniation

The effect of an underlying coexisting inflammatory/immunological disease on Th17-, Treg levels and the Th17/Treg ratio was investigated

Each graphic is composed of 4 boxplots. The first (grey) and second (yellow) boxplot display data of dogs without a coexisting disease (“no coexist. disease”) at the time “acute” (first boxplot) and “outcome” (second boxplot). The third (light blue) and the fourth (green) one display data from dogs with a coexisting inflammatory disease (“coexist. disease”) at the time “acute” (third boxplot) and “outcome” (fourth boxplot)

“acute” = acute stage of disease before treatment of IVDH

“outcome” = after recovery, on average 14 months after disc surgery

a) Th17 cells in absolute cell count/µl: No significant difference in dogs without a coexisting inflammatory disease between the time points “acute” and "outcome" (p = 0.1275). No significant difference in dogs with a coexisting inflammatory/ immunological disease between the time points “acute” and "outcome" (p = 0.2756)

b) Treg cells in absolute cell count/µl: No significant difference in dogs without a coexisting inflammatory/immunological disease between the time points "acute" and "outcome" (p = 0.0643). Note the significant difference in dogs with a coexisting inflammatory/immunological disease between the time points "acute" and "outcome" (p = 0.0038)

c) Th17/Treg ratio: No significant difference in dogs without a coexisting inflammatory/immunological disease between the time points "acute" and "outcome" (p = 09844). No significant difference in dogs with a coexisting inflammatory/immunological disease between the time points "acute" and "outcome" (p = 0.3497). The ratio 227.9 at the time point outcome was excluded from the graphic representation