Comparison of the Sensitivity of Three Methods for the Early Diagnosis of Sporotrichosis in Cats

Publication date: April 2018 Source:Journal of Comparative Pathology, Volume 160 Author(s): J.N. Silva, L.H.M. Miranda, R.C. Menezes, I.D.F. Gremião, R.V.C. Oliveira, S.M.M. Vieira, F. Conceição-Silva, L. Ferreiro, S.A. Pereira Sporotrichosis is caused by species of fungi within the Sporothrix schenckii complex that infect man and animals. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, an epidemic has been observed since 1998, with most of the cases being related to transmission from infected cats. Although the definitive diagnosis of feline sporotrichosis is made by fungal culture, cytopathological and histopathological examinations are used routinely, because the long culture period may delay treatment onset. However, alternative methods are desirable in cases of low fungal burden. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) has been described as a sensitive method for diagnosing human and canine sporotrichosis, but there are no reports of its application to cats. The aim of this study was to analyse the sensitivity of cytopathological examination (Quick Panoptic method), histopathology (Grocott silver stain) and anti-Sporothrix IHC by blinded comparisons, using fungal culture as the reference standard. Samples were collected from 184 cats with sporotrichosis that exhibited skin ulcers. The sensitivities of Grocott silver stain, cytopathological examination and IHC were 91.3%, 87.0% and 88.6%, respectively. Grocott silver stain showed the best performance. IHC showed high sensitivity, as did cyto...
Source: Journal of Comparative Pathology - Category: Pathology Source Type: research