Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Collaboration with the clinical microbiology laboratory optimizes diagnosis of dog and cat infections: recommendations from the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists.
- Journal:
- Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
- Year:
- 2025
- Authors:
- Cole, Stephen D et al.
- Affiliation:
- Department of Pathobiology · United States
Plain-English summary
Veterinary microbiology laboratories play an important role in diagnosing infections in dogs and cats, especially as new germs emerge and antibiotic resistance becomes a concern. However, veterinarians often find it challenging to understand lab results because they lack clear connections to the samples submitted. To improve this, it's essential for vets to send high-quality samples along with detailed clinical histories, which helps labs provide accurate and useful results. Inspired by guidelines from human medicine, veterinary microbiologists are working together to create a similar guide for better collaboration and improved outcomes in diagnosing infections in pets. The goal is to enhance the way veterinarians and labs work together to ensure pets receive the best care possible.
Abstract
Clinical veterinary microbiology laboratories and microbiologists are critical in combatting emerging and endemic pathogens and reducing the impact of antimicrobial resistance. For veterinarians, the microbiology laboratory can be an enigmatic place as results from the lab are produced with little transparency and thus can feel disconnected from the submitted specimen. Submission of clinically representative and high-quality specimens to the microbiology laboratory, with a good clinical history, is critically important because it enables the laboratory to produce accurate, efficient, and clinically relevant results. In human medicine, the Infectious Disease Society of America and the American Society of Microbiology have developed a guide for the use of microbiology laboratories to diagnose infectious diseases. It summarized best practices for clinicians and laboratorians to work together to lead to better patient outcomes. The goal of this article was to bring together veterinary microbiologists to build a guide inspired by the Infectious Disease Society of America/American Society of Microbiology document for use in veterinary medicine and to consolidate other recommendations for use in the veterinary microbiology laboratory.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40139154/