Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Dog in Japan diagnosed with skin histoplasmosis using PCR test
By Ueda, Yachiyo et al.·Published in Veterinary microbiology·2003·Ueda Animal Clinic, Japan·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Diagnosis of histoplasmosis by detection of the internal transcribed spacer region of fungal rRNA gene from a paraffin-embedded skin sample from a dog in Japan.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A 5-year-old female Shiba Inu in Japan had skin ulcers and lesions caused by a fungal infection called histoplasmosis. Unlike cases in North America, this dog did not show any lung or digestive issues. The vet diagnosed the infection using a special test on a sample taken from the dog's skin. The results showed a high similarity to a specific type of fungus known to cause this disease. Treatment details weren't specified, but identifying the infection is crucial for proper care.
People also search for: dog skin ulcers treatment · Shiba Inu histoplasmosis symptoms · fungal infection in dogs
Abstract
The lesions of histoplasmosis in dogs in Japan differ from those in dogs in North America. Affected dogs in Japan have had multiple granulomatous or ulcerated foci in skin or gingiva and have not had pulmonary or gastrointestinal lesions. The present report introduces a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnosis of canine histoplasmosis and the characteristic of disease in Japan. The surgically removed skin ulcerate samples from a 5-years-old female Shiba-inu native to Japan without traveling out of the country were evaluated. Tissue samples had many yeast-like organisms in the macrophages. DNA was extracted from paraffin-embedded tissue samples. A nested PCR technique was applied. The detected sequence of the internal transcribed spacer of ribosomal RNA gene had 99.7% in homology with Ajellomyces capsulatus (the teleomorph of Histoplasma capsulatum). Clinical manifestations, historical background of equine epizootic lymphangitis in Japan, and a human autochthonous case of histoplasmosis farciminosi indicated that this dog might have been infected with H. capsulatum var. farciminosum as a heteroecism.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12814889/