First case of canine peritoneal larval cestodosis caused by Mesocestoides lineatus in Germany
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A Simple Fecal Flotation Method for Diagnosing Zoonotic Nematodes Under Field and Laboratory Conditions
Published on: December 15, 2023
N Wirtherle1, A Wiemann, M Ottenjann
1Institute for Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Königsweg 67, D-14163 Berlin, Germany. wirtherle.nicole@vetmed.fu-berlin.de
Abstract:
A 13-year-old Dalmatian dog was presented with a history of abdominal enlargement and reduced appetite for several months. Acute clinical signs were anorexia, vomiting and diarrhoea. During exploratory laparotomy, acute intestinal perforation due to a foreign body and peritonitis was diagnosed. In addition, the abdominal cavity was filled with multiple small (0.5 cm), white, cyst-like structures. Histopathology revealed typical cestode structures of the cyst walls but no protoscolices were found. PCR was performed with cestode specific primers of the mitochondrial 12S rDNA. The sequence showed a 99.75% identity with a Mesocestoides lineatus isolate published in the NCBI GenBank. This is the first case of canine peritoneal larval cestodosis (CPLC) in Germany and the first evidence of M. lineatus as causal agent for CPLC.
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