Pitiose em cães no Semiárido Nordestino.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiological, clinical and pathological features of four cases of pythiosis in dogs diagnosed at the Laboratory of Animal Pathology, Veterinary Hospital of the Federal University of Campina Grande. The animals were breeds poodle, German shepherd, pitbull and SRD, two males and two females ranging in age from one to three years. Two cases occurred in 2011, one in 2013 and one in 2014, were from two municipalities of Paraíba and two of Rio Grande do Norte. The four animals were bred in the urban area, three had access to flooded areas of the countryside and which had no contact with wetland, drank well water. Clinical signs were varied, observing vomiting, diarrhea and tenesmus. Two dogs had suspected bowel obstruction and one had primarily cutaneous involvement. Macroscopically, in two cases there was an irregular, firm yellowish mass involving the initial portion of the small intestine, affecting the duodenum, pancreas, mesenteric lymph nodes and pancreatic and fourth case also had liver damage. The second case had ulcerative lesions with serosanguineous secretion in the skin region that stretched from the sacral dorsal-caudal to the anus and the end portion of the rectum. The third case showed thickening of the wall of the rectum and anus with irregular nodules that extended the perianal region, also with transmural involvement of the vagina. Histologically, the lesions were similar, characterized by multiple granulomas containing negative images of hyphae in tissue sections stained with hematoxylin eosin (HE). For better visualization of hyphae was used special stains methenamine silver Grocott (GSM) and periodic acid Schiff (PAS). The diagnosis was based on epidemiological, clinical and pathological and histological findings with confirmation by immunohistochemistry. Pythiosis occurs sporadically in dogs from northeastern semiarid region and should be included in the differential diagnosis mainly of diseases that cause obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract.