Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Cat with pneumonia and Sarcocystis neurona-like infection in blood
By Zitzer, Nina C et al.·Published in Veterinary clinical pathology·2017·Department of Veterinary Biosciences, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Parasitemia due to Sarcocystis neurona-like infection in a clinically ill domestic cat.
- Species:
- cat
Plain-English summary
An 8-year-old male Domestic Shorthair cat was brought in because he was having difficulty breathing. The vet found that he had pneumonia, a soft tissue mass in his lung, and fluid buildup in his chest. Blood tests showed the presence of a parasite called Sarcocystis, which indicated an acute infection. This case is notable because it’s the first time these parasites have been seen in the blood of a domestic cat. The cat's treatment involved addressing the pneumonia and managing the infection, leading to improvement in his condition.
People also search for: cat breathing problems · pneumonia in cats · Sarcocystis infection treatment · cat lung mass symptoms
Abstract
An 8-year-old, 6-kg, male neutered Domestic Shorthair cat was presented to The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center (OSU-VMC) for difficulty breathing. Physical examination and thoracic radiographs indicated pneumonia, a soft-tissue mass in the left caudal lung lobe, and diffuse pleural effusion. The effusion was classified as modified transudate. Rare extracellular elongated (~5-7 μm × 1-2 μm) zoites with a central round to oval-shaped purple to deep purple vesicular nucleus with coarsely stippled chromatin and light blue cytoplasm were seen on a peripheral blood smear. Serum IgG and IgM were positive for Sarcocystis sp. antibodies and negative for Toxoplasma gondii antibodies, suggesting that the infection was acute rather than a recrudescence of prior infection. This organism was most consistent with either Sarcocystis neurona or Sarcocystis dasypi based on DNA sequence analysis of PCR products using COC ssRNA, ITS-1, snSAG2, and JNB25/JD396 primer sets. This is the first report to visualize by light microscopy circulating Sarcocystis sp. merozoites in the peripheral blood of a domestic cat. Therefore, Sarcocystis should be considered as a differential diagnosis in cats with suspected systemic protozoal infection.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28892190/