Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Monitoring Leishmania load and immune markers in treated dogs
By Manna, Laura et al.·Published in Cytokine·2008·Dipartimento di Scienze Cliniche Veterinarie, Italy·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Interferon-gamma (INF-gamma), IL4 expression levels and Leishmania DNA load as prognostic markers for monitoring response to treatment of leishmaniotic dogs with miltefosine and allopurinol.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of 20 dogs naturally infected with Leishmania showed symptoms of illness and were treated with miltefosine and allopurinol. Researchers measured the levels of the parasites in their blood and lymph nodes, as well as specific immune markers in their blood, to see how well the treatment was working. The findings suggest that checking both the parasite levels and immune responses can help veterinarians assess how effective the treatment is and predict any potential relapses. This approach could improve monitoring and management of dogs with Leishmania infections.
People also search for: dog leishmania treatment · miltefosine for dogs · allopurinol for leishmania in dogs
Abstract
In this study, we searched for a connection between Leishmania load and cytokine expression levels in the tissues of Leishmaniainfantum naturally infected dogs and the efficacy of treatment with miltefosine and allopurinol. To this purpose, we exploited a real-time PCR system to detect Leishmania load and the expression levels of IFN-gamma and IL-4 mRNAs at the time of diagnosis and during the follow up post-treatment. In particular, we measured the amount of parasites in blood and lymph node samples, while the expression levels of IFN-gamma and IL-4 cytokines were assessed in the blood of the animals. We employed different targeted real-time PCR assays on 20 naturally infected dogs with clinical signs. Three healthy dogs living in a non-endemic area were selected as negative controls. The overall results obtained demonstrate that the simultaneous evaluation of parasites and cytokine levels in different kinds of tissue might represent a reliable tool to evaluate the immune response, the efficacy of the therapy and to predict the relapses during the treatment.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18842424/