Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
PCR blood tests to track parasite levels in dogs treated for Chagas
By Zao, Chih-Ling et al.·Published in Journal of veterinary diagnostic investigation : official publication of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, Inc·2019·VRL-San Antonio·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: PCR monitoring of parasitemia during drug treatment for canine Chagas disease.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs with Chagas disease were treated with medications like itraconazole and amiodarone to see how well the treatments worked. Researchers used special blood tests to check for the presence of the parasite before and after treatment. They found that after 30 days, none of the treated dogs showed signs of the parasite in their blood, indicating that the treatment was effective. This suggests that these blood tests can help monitor the success of treatment in dogs with Chagas disease.
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Abstract
To date, there is no clear standard to monitor drug treatment for canine Chagas disease. We used 2 real-time PCR (rtPCR) assays targetingkinetoplast DNA (kDNA) and nuclear satellite DNA (nDNA) to detectin canine whole blood. Samples were collected randomly from 131 untreated dogs with unknowninfection status in Texas. The kDNA-based rtPCR was slightly more sensitive (diagnostic sensitivity of kDNA = 49% vs. nDNA = 44%;= 0.5732) but slightly less specific (diagnostic specificity of kDNA = 96% vs. nDNA = 97%;> 0.9999) than the nDNA-based rtPCR. However, the differences in sensitivity and specificity between the nDNA- and kDNA-based rtPCR assays were not statistically significant. Using the nDNA- and kDNA-based qualitative rtPCR assays to monitor parasitemia from 137 itraconazole- and amiodarone-treated cases with nDNA- and kDNA-based PCR-positive baselines showed that the PCR positive rate decreased to 0% in 30 d. Using kDNA-based quantitative rtPCR to monitor normalizedDNA copies in 4 representative dogs demonstrated that drug treatment could reduce parasite loads within 7-30 d. The kDNA-based qualitative rtPCR may be used for routine parasitemia screening of drug-treated Chagas-positive dogs, whereas nDNA-based qualitative rtPCR may be used for confirmation.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31378166/