Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Dog with visceral leishmaniasis causing heart muscle damage
By López-Peña, Mónica et al.·Published in Acta veterinaria Scandinavica·2009·Hospital Clí, Spain·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Visceral leishmaniasis with cardiac involvement in a dog: a case report.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A dog presented with skin nodules, swollen lymph nodes, and swelling in the limbs, face, and abdomen. The vet diagnosed visceral leishmaniasis, a serious infection caused by a parasite, after finding the parasite in skin and lymph node samples. Sadly, the dog had severe inflammation in various organs, especially the heart, which showed signs of damage. This case is unusual because heart problems are not typically associated with this infection. Unfortunately, the outcome was not positive, as the dog had significant organ damage.
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Abstract
A dog presented with cutaneous nodules, enlarged lymph nodes and oedema in limbs, face and abdomen. The diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis was established by identification of Leishmania amastigotes within macrophages from skin and popliteal lymph node biopsies. At necropsy, lesions were found in different organs, but it was particularly striking to observe large areas of pallor in the myocardium. Histological examination revealed an intense chronic inflammatory reaction in many organs, and numerous macrophages were found to contain amastigote forms of Leishmania. The inflammatory reaction was especially severe in the heart, where large areas of the myocardium appeared infiltrated with huge numbers of mononuclear immune cells, causing cardiac muscle atrophy and degeneration. Despite the severe inflammation, the number of parasitized macrophages was low in the myocardium, as revealed by immunohistochemical staining of Leishmania amastigotes. Because cardiac involvement is not usually described in this condition, this dog represents a very rare case of canine visceral leishmaniasis with affection of the myocardium.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19405946/