Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Neospora infection causing severe heart and lung disease
By McAllister, M M et al.·Published in Australian veterinary journal·2016·School of Animal & Veterinary Sciences, Australia·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Unusual presentation of neosporosis in a neonatal puppy from a litter of bulldogs.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A 17-day-old Bulldog puppy was brought to the vet for weakness and rapid breathing but sadly died shortly after. The vet found severe inflammation in many organs and clusters of a parasite called Neospora caninum, which is known to cause illness in dogs. Although this puppy was affected, all of its six littermates were sold and reported to be healthy at six months old. This case highlights that Bulldogs can be susceptible to this type of infection, but it was unusual for only one puppy in the litter to show symptoms.
People also search for: Bulldog puppy weakness · puppy rapid breathing · Neospora caninum in dogs · puppy infection symptoms · neonatal puppy health issues
Abstract
CASE REPORT: A 17-day-old Bulldog puppy died soon after presentation for weakness and tachypnoea. Gross lesions included diffuse pulmonary oedema and a region of myocardial pallor that resembled an infarct. Inflammation was observed histopathologically in many organs, with numerous clusters of intracellular protozoa that stained positively using Neospora caninum immunohistochemistry. Myocarditis was severe and had associated necrosis of individual myocytes, but the tissue was not infarcted. The bitch had an antibody titre of 1 : 1600 for N. caninum. All six littermates were sold and reported to be healthy at 6 months of age. CONCLUSION: Unusual aspects of this case include the occurrence of clinical disease in only 1 of 7 neonatal puppies, widespread dissemination of the organism in multiple tissues, and regional pallor associated with myocarditis that gave a false gross appearance of infarction. This report also adds Bulldogs to the list of dog breeds shown to be susceptible to clinical neosporosis.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27785796/