Rickets in a crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous)
Anselmo, Alana MacenaSaldanha, AndreMuelbahuer, EloisaBuch, DanielleOliveira, Mariana Reffatti DePasserino, Ana Sílvia MirandaLange, Rogerio RibasFroes, Tilde Rodrigues
Background: Calcium is essential for the healthy development of animals, especially regarding bone formation. Diversefactors influence calcium metabolism, and failure in any of these points may result in metabolic bone diseases. Ricketsis an uncommon disease of growing bones occurring exclusively in young animals, it is characterized by the failure ofosteoid to calcify and can be a result of lack of vitamin D, imbalance of calcium and phosphorus or hereditary conditions.Nutritional origin is more frequent in veterinary medicine, but it has become rarer after the availability of balanced commercial rations. This report describes the diagnosis and treatment of rickets in a crab-eating fox puppy.Case: A 3-month-old male crab-eating fox was presented with ataxia and angular deviation of the tibia and radius/ulnawith suspected osteometabolic disease. It was part of a group of three orphan siblings hand-raised. The other two siblingsdid not present any clinical signs. All three animals presented pale mucous membranes and were infected by ancylostoma,coccidia, toxocara, and sarcocystis. Radiographic findings of the affected animal showed generalized osteopenia of theentire skeleton associated with widening radiolucent distal physeal plates and cupping of the metaphysis, changes classical of rickets. The other two siblings presented no skeletal alterations and complete blood count and biochemistry of allthree animals were taken for comparison, including serum vitamin D and PTH. All three animals presented lymphopenia(5.4-9.3 x 103/uL, reference range 10.3-16.5 x 103/uL), hypoproteinemia (5.1-5.3 g/dL, reference range 5.9-8.2 g/dL),low levels of creatinine (0.4-0.6 mg/dL, reference range 0.7-1.2 mg/dL), increased ALP (181-285 U/L, reference range209.7-267 U/L) and CK (421-500 U/L, reference range for domestic dogs 16-140 U/L). The affected fox presented ionizedcalcium (10.9 mg/dL, reference range for domestic dogs 9.3-11.5 mg/dL) and vitamin...(AU)
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