Portal vein hypoplasia in dogs

Portal vein hypoplasia (PVH) is a congenital disorder, in which microscopic intrahepatic shunts are present, causing blood to bypass the liver sinusoids. As the clinical presentation and the laboratory findings are similar to those in dogs with an extrahepatic portosystemic shunt (EHPSS), differentiation between both disorders is based on the confirmation of a macroscopic shunt by diagnostic imaging techniques. This review highlights the major aspects of PVH, including the differentiation from EHPSSs, and the challenges to diagnose both disorders in dogs with concurrent PVH and EHPSS

Molecular and immunohistochemical distinction of equine sarcoid from schwannoma

Ten equine skin tumors that had been classified as schwannomas on routine histological examination were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction for bovine papillomavirus DNA. All 10 were positive for bovine papillomavirus 1 or 2, and all 10 were immunohistochemically negative for S-100 protein and strongly positive for vimentin. Nine tumors were moderately positive for laminin and 8, for smooth muscle actin. Five tumors were variably and weakly positive for type IV collagen. The lack of S-100 protein expression made Schwann cells an unlikely cell of origin, as opposed to peripheral nerve sheath tumors, which typically express S-100 protein, at least in some neoplastic cells. The immunohistochemical reactivity is consistent with myofibroblastic origin of the neoplastic cells, although smooth muscle cell or pericyte origin cannot be ruled out. These tumors represent an atypical form of equine sarcoid. Polymerase chain reaction for bovine papillomavirus and S-100 immunohistochemistry are strongly recommended for all equine skin tumors with histological characteristics typical of schwannoma or peripheral nerve sheath tumor

Antibodies to elastin peptides in sera of Warmblood horses at different ages

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Assessment of plasma anti-elastin antibodies for use as a diagnostic aid for chronic progressive lymphoedema in Belgian Draught Horses

Diagnosis of chronic progressive lymphoedema (CPL) in draught horses, including the Belgian Draught Horse, is mainly based on clinical evaluation of typical lower limb lesions. A deficient perilymphatic elastic support, caused by a pathological elastin degradation in skin and subcutis, has been suggested as a contributing factor for CPL. Elastin degradation products induce the generation of anti-elastin Ab (AEAb), detectable in horse serum by ELISA. For a clinically healthy group of draught horses, a significantly lower average AEAb-level than 3 clinically affected groups (mild, moderate and severe symptoms) was demonstrated previously. To improve CPL-diagnosis, we evaluated the AEAb-ELISA as an in vitro diagnostic aid in individual horses. Test reproducibility was assessed, performing assays independently in 2 laboratories on a total of 345 horses. Possible factors associated with AEAb-levels (age, gender, pregnancy, test lab and date of blood collection) were analyzed using a mixed statistical model. Results were reproducible in both laboratories. AEAb-levels in moderately and severely affected horses were significantly higher than in healthy horses. Nevertheless, this was only demonstrated in barren mares, and, there was a very large overlap between the clinical groups. Consequently, even when a high AEAb cut-off was handled to obtain a reasonable specificity of 90%, a very low sensitivity (21%) of AEAb for CPL-diagnosis was obtained. Results on the present sample demonstrate that the described ELISA procedure is of no use as a diagnostic test for CPL in individual horses.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Assessment of plasma anti-elastin antibodies for use as a diagnostic aid for chronic progressive lymphoedema in Belgian Draught Horses journaltitle: Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vetimm.2014.11.004 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.status: publishe

Congenital extrahepatic portoazygos shunt in combination with hepatic microvascular dysplasia in a Yorkshire Terrier

A five-year-old, female castrated Yorkshire Terrier was presented with complaints of decreased activity and appetite, fever, a painful abdomen and lower urinary tract symptoms. Based on blood and urinalysis there was a strong suspicion of liver disease and a urinary tract infection. Abdominal ultrasound revealed a portoazygos shunt, bilateral nephrolithiasis and pyelectasia raising the suspicion of pyelonephritis. However, pyelonephritis could not be confirmed because urine culture - while the dog received antibiotics - was negative. A shunt fraction of 99% was confirmed on scintigraphy. After medical stabilization, the shunt was surgically attenuated using a cellophane band. Postoperatively, conservative treatment was continued and the dog became clinically asymptomatic, although serum pre- and postprandial bile acid concentrations remained elevated. Six months after the surgical intervention, a persistent or acquired shunt was excluded by subsequent scintigraphy (shunt fraction 0.88%). Surgical liver biopsies were taken and routine histopathology revealed hepatic microvascular dysplasia

Virtual histology by means of high-resolution X-ray CT

Micro-CT is a non-destructive technique for 3D tomographic investigation of an object. A 3D representation of the internal structure is calculated based on a series of X-ray radiographs taken from different angles. The spatial resolution of current laboratory-used micro-CT systems has come down over the last years from a few tens of microns to a few microns. This opens the possibility to perform histological investigations in 3D on a virtual representation of a sample, referred to as virtual 3D histology. The advantage of micro-CT based virtual histology is the immediate and automated 3D visualization of the sample without prior slicing, sample preparation like decalcification, photographing and aligning. This not only permits a drastic reduction in preparation time but also offers the possibility to easily investigate objects that are difficult to slice. This article presents results that were obtained on punch biopsies of horse skin, (dental) alveolus of ponies and chondro-osseous samples from the tarsus of foals studied with the new high resolution micro-CT set-up (HRXCT) at the Ghent University (Belgium) (http://www.ugct.ugent.be). This state-of-the-art set-up provides a 1 micron resolution and is therefore ideally suited for a direct comparison with standard light microscopy-based histology