my friends 7 months old lab bitch has just been diagnosed with fragmentation of the coronoid process in both front legs.I have never heard of this before, what is it, and is it hereditary???John do you know??s anyone else know as she is really worried and wants to know a likely outcome??is it linked to ocd?

Me here, not John but expect he`ll be along shortly :) It`s elbow dysplasia in other words, sorry to tell you Lab`s are prone to it, along with other large breeds. It`s not sure what the cause is at the mo. Link below will give you some info.
http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/sah/conditions/elbow_dysplasia.htm

Christine, Spain.

Hi Candie, Obi has FCP, it is where the bones do not join correctly, maybe one is slightly too short, the bones rub and cause fragmentation of the bone and cartilage, it is genetic, but not by a single gene, so a blood test cannot identify a carrier.  A lot could be done by elbow screening at the same time as hip screening.  The BVA say you can breed from a dog with a 0 or 1 rating (Obi was a 3, quite severe), but my specialist feels it is irresponsible to breed from any dog with ANY signs, which I tend to agree with.  Obi had an operation to remove a bit of bone from his ulna so that the radius fit into it better and to remove the fragmented bone and damaged cartilage.  It is an at least 10 week recovery period, including a course of four anti inflammatory injections, a long course of Rimadyl and will be on Synoquin (glucosamine) permanantly.
Depending on where your friend livess I can highly recommend my specialist, he has just completed a five year study into FCP, and is doing the latest treatments
I wish your friend a lot of luck, it is a lot of hard work, trying to keep the dog rested and stopping them from running, jumping, turning, in fact everything a normal puppy wants to do - we have had to have a complete ban on tennisaballs!
Hayley

thanks for both yopur replies.her breeder had the sire and dam hip scored with excellent results but not elbow scored.she just needs to know if it is genetic or not, not sure if she wants to claim from the breeder, although i have advised against it!!

Yes, definitely genetic, though very few breeders do get them scored, so couldn't really say the breeder is a bad breeder as it is unfortunately not yet common practice.  I am sure any decent breeder would want to know about it.  When I told my breeder - and it didn't occur to me not to - she was horrified , she hadn't known it was in the breed, and within a month both the dam and sire, who was owned by a different breeder,  had been xrayed to see if either of them was affected, as it was the sire has a not brilliant elbow score (despite having good hips) so he will not be used again.  My breeder did say she would refund our money, though I have said I do not expect her to, she did the tests she thought necessary for the breed, I chose the puppy I wanted, he is a little star that I couldn't be without, it is just unfortunate really, the breed society is now working towards getting all breeders in this country to elbow score at the same time as hip scoring, that is the most important thing...
Bit of a ramble, hope it helps
Hayley