Hematological profile of Chelonia mydas (Testudines, Cheloniidae) according to the severity of fibropapillomatosis or its absence

Abstract

Fibropapillomatosis is a disease characterized by benign skin tumors (fibropapillomas), and it is one of the main threats to the survival of this species. Studies suggest the involvement of viruses as infectious agents associated with environmental and genetic factors. Blood samples were collected from 45 turtles captured in the coastal area of the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. From these, 27 were affected by fibropapillomas and 18 were tumor free. Biometrical data on the turtles, size, location and quantity of tumors were recorded. The area occupied by fibropapillomas per animal was calculated and four groups were determined according to severity of the disease or its absence. The objective of the study was to compare hemogram results of the sea turtles classified in these four groups. The lowest hematocrit value was observed in severely affected animals. In the hemoglobin assay, the highest value was observed in the group of tumor free turtles and the lowest, in animals severely affected. Lymphocyte counts and curved carapace length were on the verge of statistical significance.

Health condition of juvenile Chelonia mydas related to fibropapillomatosis in southeast Brazil

“…The PCV values of healthy animals in this study were lower than those obtained by Work & Balazs (1999) in Hawaii but were similar to those found in the Bahamas, Arabian sea, Australia, and Galapagos (Bolten & Bjorndal 1992, Alkindi & Mahmoud 2002, Flint et al 2010, Lewbart et al 2014) and other places in Brazil (Rossi et al 2009, Santos et al 2009). Hematocrit is simple and cheap to measure, and the test has a low coefficient of variation, making it a useful tool in the evaluation of the health of sea turtles.…”

Challenges in Evaluating the Severity of Fibropapillomatosis: A Proposal for Objective Index and Score System for Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas) in Brazil

“…For each examined individual, FP tumors were counted and classified into four size categories based on their diameter: A (<1 cm), B (1–4 cm), C (>4–10 cm) and D (>10 cm) [33]. Tumors of each size category were counted separately for each of eleven anatomical regions (Fig 1): left eye, right eye, head, neck, left forelimb, right forelimb, carapace, plastron, left hindlimb, right hindlimb, inguinal region/tail.…”

“…Additionally, we incorporated data from Rossi et al (2009) [33] on the total tumor area (TTA) of 27 juvenile green sea turtles (a subset of the individuals examined in this study). TTA had been calculated estimating the cross-sectional area (cm 2 ) of each individual tumor using the formula: π × 0.5a × 0.5b for the major [a] and minor [b] axis of an ellipse [27].…”

“…For this purpose, past studies have attempted to classify FP through the subjective visual inspection of specimens or of dorsal and ventral photographs [4,35,36] or through objective scoring systems based on the number of tumors and their anatomical distribution, categories of size and an estimative of the total area of tumors [22,25,27,32,33]. Among the attempts to classify FP, there is a system that uses number of tumors and tumor size category to assign a score of FP severity, which was developed using FP manifestation found in green sea turtles studied in Hawaii and has been broadly used by sea turtle conservation programs [32].…”

<b>Detecção e quantificação de alguns elementos químicos inorgânicos em sangue e tecidos de tartarugas-verdes - <i>Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus, 1758) </i>- da costa brasileira</b>: possível correlação com a fibropapilomatose

“…Os tumores epiteliais podem ser pigmentados ou não, dependendo da pigmentação da pele na área de surgimento da lesão (HERBST, 1994) e podem se desenvolver em diversas partes do corpo do animal como nadadeiras, base da cauda, região cervical, oral, ocular, inguinal, axilar e carapaça incluindo as suturas entre os escudos adjacentes além de órgãos cavitários como os rins, o fígado e os pulmões (JACOBSON et al, 1989;NORTON et al, 1990;JACOBSON et al, 1991;BALAZS, 1997) apresentando variação no tamanho e na quantidade (BAPTISTOTTE, 2007;ROSSI, 2007). O tamanho e a localização dos tumores benignos têm importância na sobrevida do animal acometido.…”