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Periódicos Brasileiros em Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia

Babesiose encefálica em cães: aspectos clínicos, epidemiológicos e patológicos

Ferreira, Jefferson da SilvaMartis, Francisco Sávio de MouraFrade, Maria Talita SoaresCarneiro, Rosileide dos SantosSouza, Almir Pereira deDantas, Antônio Flávio Medeiros

Background: Babesiosis is a hemolytic disease caused by protozoa of the genus Babesia spp. responsible for causinganemia, fever and splenomegaly in several animal species. The cerebral involvement of babesiosis in dogs manifests itselfin a hyperacute manner with neurological disorders such as motor incoordination, nystagmus, anisocoria and convulsions.In Brazil there still are no studies which describe the pathological aspects of cerebral babesiosis in dogs together withinformation relating to its clinical aspects and epidemiology. Therefore, this work had as an objective to describe sevencases of canine cerebral babesiosis, emphasizing its epidemiological, clinical and pathological aspects.Materials, Methods & Results: All the records of the necropsies performed in dogs at Animal Pathology Laboratory (LPA/HV) of the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), Patos Campus, Paraíba, Northeast of Brazil were identified. In Theperiod from January 2003 to December 2017. Later, were selected all the cases of cerebral babesiosis. Were included in thestudy the cases in which was possible to detect structures that were morphologically compatible with Babesia spp. trophozoites,intra-erythrocyte in vessels, associated to the presence of lesions in the CNS. For the microscopical description all the histological slides of the cases were revised, in addition to new slides were made with the fragments stored in parafin blocks or withthe material fixed in a 10% formalin solution. The clinical course of the animals studied was hyperacute. In 4 cases, there wassudden death within 24 h, from the appearance of the first symptoms and case 7 presented an evolution of approximately 12 h.The main clinical symptoms described were vocalization, anorexia/hyporexia, jaundice and decubitus. Additionally, the mostconsistente macroscopical findings observed...(AU)

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