Long term follow-up in canine leishmaniasis: finding prognostic factors

Abstract

Leishmaniasis is a zoonotic parasitic disease, with Leishmania infantum as the main etiological agent. It is transmitted by Phlebotominae sandflies, present in southern Europe, Africa, Asia and America. It causes many nonspecific clinical signs like lethargy, weight loss and skin lesions. Treatment, mainly with allopurinol, meglumine antimoniate and/or miltefosine, focusses on improving clinical signs and can lead to clinical cure. However, complete elimination of the parasite cannot be achieved.

The goal of this study was to find prognostic factors in the laboratory results of dogs at the time of their diagnosis. This was done by performing a long-term follow-up retrospective cohort study on 49 dogs diagnosed with leishmaniasis, using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. The effect of their Leishmania Working Group classification, their treatment and sex and blood, clinical chemistry and urine examination results on survival was determined.

Factors with a significantly negative influence on the survival rate turned out to be monocytes and MCV for blood hematology, creatinine and urea for clinical chemistry and glucose, granular casts, hemoglobin, protein/creatinine ratio and specific gravity for urine. Most of these results can be explained by the fact that most of these factors, when elevated, can be a sign of renal dysfunction which has a negative influence on survival.

It can be concluded that these factors could be used as prognostic factors when diagnosing dogs with leishmaniasis. As most of them are an indicator of kidney function, kidney function should be seen as an important part of classification of severity of clinical Leishmaniasis.