Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Blood test markers linked to clinical leishmaniasis in infected dogs
By Lopes, Valeriana Valadares et al.·Published in Veterinary parasitology·2018·Universidade Federal de Sã, Brazil·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: IgG avidity index and complete blood count as biomarkers of clinical disease in naturally infected dogs with Leishmania infantum.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of 52 dogs with a parasitic disease called canine visceral leishmaniosis (CVL) were studied to identify signs of illness and potential blood markers for the disease. The most common symptoms in the 29 dogs that were clinically affected included weight loss, pale gums, and swollen lymph nodes. Researchers found that high levels of a specific antibody (IgG avidity index) and low counts of certain blood cells were linked to more severe disease. These findings suggest that monitoring these blood markers could help veterinarians diagnose and track the progression of CVL in dogs.
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Abstract
Canine visceral leishmaniosis (CVL), a parasitic disease caused by Leishmania infantum, may evolve to a chronic condition and lead to death. Evaluation of infected dogs is important to establish the clinical and laboratory parameters involved in the evolution of the disease. The objectives of the present study were to discriminate a canine population (n = 52) into sub-clinical and clinically affected dogs based on signs and scores, to evaluate the hematological, biochemical, histopathological and parasitological parameters of the two dog groups, and to analyze the results by multivariate regression analysis with the aim of establishing biomarkers of CVL clinical disease. The most common signs observed in the clinically affected dogs (n = 29) were hyperkeratosis, weight loss, onychogryphosis, pale mucosa and lymphadenomegaly. In the multivariate analysis, animals presenting high IgG avidity index and low red blood, lymphocyte and eosinophil counts, and low serum urea concentration had an increased probability of being classified as clinically affected (p <  0.05). All five parameters were considered to be strong biomarkers for monitoring the clinical disease, while IgG avidity percentage was strongly correlated with the number of clinical signs and could function as an indicator of the duration of infection. This is the first report on the application of IgG avidity and of multivariate regression analysis in establishing associations between the clinical signs of CVL and host biomarkers. Since avidity index (AI) percentages were strongly correlated with the number of clinical signs, it could be useful in clinical practice for auxiliary diagnosis of CVL and monitoring disease progression. A limitation of this study is the lack of information on co-infections by Anaplasma platys, Babesia canis vogeli, Ehrlichia canis and Hepatozoon canis. Therefore future studies should evaluate the influence of such co-infections on the associations studied using multivariate methods with larger samples.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30253858/