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American trypanosomiasis is caused by the zoonotic protozoa Trypanosoma cruzi and primarily results in heart disease. Organisms also infect the central nervous system (CNS). The Texas A&M University veterinary teaching hospital archive was searched for dogs with CNS disease with intralesional protozoal amastigotes. This study summarizes 4 cases of dogs with disseminated trypanosomiasis and CNS involvement confirmed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) with T. cruzi primers. Clinical signs included lethargy, respiratory distress, tetraparesis, and seizures. Central nervous system lesions included meningeal congestion (1/4), necrosis with hemorrhage in the spinal cord gray and white matter (2/4), and histiocytic meningoencephalitis (4/4), and meningomyelitis (2/4) with intralesional and intracellular protozoal. Genotyping identified 1 case of T. cruzi discrete typing unit (DTU) TcI and 2 cases as TcIV, both are common variants in the United States. Trypanosomiasis should be considered a differential diagnosis for dogs with CNS signs in T. cruzi-endemic areas.

A 3-year-old castrated male, American Pit Bull Terrier presented to Texas A&M University due to a 3-week mixed cerebellar and general proprioceptive ataxia, circling, head tilt, and dull mentation. Neurologic examination revealed signs of vestibular and mesencephalic dysfunction. Postmortem examination revealed a 1.1 × 1 × 0.8-cm, soft, dark red, well-circumscribed, left-sided mass, extending from the crus cerebri of the midbrain caudally to the pons. Microscopically, the neoplasm was composed of a spindle-shaped interstitial population of cells interspersed between a prominent capillary network, consistent with the reticular pattern of hemangioblastoma. Interstitial cells had strong, diffuse, intracytoplasmic immunolabeling for neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and were variably positive for intracytoplasmic glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). Vascular endothelial cells had strong diffuse, intracytoplasmic immunolabeling for von Willebrand factor (VWF) glycoprotein. To date, only six cases of hemangioblastoma have been reported in canines, five in the spinal cord, and one in the rostral cerebrum. Our case may represent the first canine hemangioblastoma localized to the brainstem.

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