Schistosomus reflexus in a Dog and a Cat

Abstract

Background: Schistosomus reflexus (SR) is a congenital anomaly, that the animal presents exposed abdominal and thoracic organs. The alterations includes limbs malformation, abnormal spinal column, liver and diaphragm hypoplasia, genitourinary and gastrointestinal changes, on this way, the fetus can not survive. The aim of this study was to report the first SR case in dog and cat in Brazil, and describe anatomical, pathological and radiographic changes.Case: The puppy had ventral midline defect in the abdominal and thoracic wall extending from the sternum to the pubis with viscera exposition, including the heart, lung, liver, stomach, intestine, spleen, kidneys, moreover right army was abnormal, however no spinal column was present. It was performed radiography to evaluate bone abnormalities, and was diagnosed agenesis of carpal, metacarpal and phalange bones. The kitten had ventral midline defect measuring 4 x 2 cm, in the abdominal wall and exposition of liver, stomach, intestine and spleen, as well as tibiotarsal joint arthrogryposis on both lags. It was performed fetus radiography and no spinal column change was diagnosed.Discussion: Schistosomus reflexus is a congenital abnormality common in ruminants. Although it was few reported in dogs and cats. The two cases in this study are the firsts reposts in Brazil in these especies. In our case, the dog had exposition of abdominal and thoracic organs and died one hour after born, similar to this, another author reported a case where the thoracic and abdominal evisceration and the puppy died ten minutes after born. However, in another case with abdominal evisceration only, the puppy survived for eight days. Probably it happened because respiratore function was not compromised. The kitten had abdominal opening only, in turn, other authors reported a case whose abdominal viscera exposition was by pelvic fissure, and another case, what presented thoracic and abdominal evisceration, like our dog case. Some authors affirm that this defect causes fetal dystocia on ruminants, because of the vertebral column abnormality, what promote passage difficult at born moment. On the other hand, dogs did not present these kind of changes and dystocia was not related to this pathology on cases in dogs and cats, however most of these authors performed cesarean because the female did not get normal born. As well as, on two cases in kitten were reported vertebral column abnormalities, what can be related to dystocia. Even no animal of our study present any vertebral column abnormality, other bone changes were found, like carpal, metacarpal and phalange agenesis on army of the dog and tibiotarsal joint arthrogryposis on both lags of the cat fetus. The others report in dogs did not found vertebral column or bone changes, but in cats it was observed vertebral column abnormalities and other changes, like arthrogryposis on four limbs, skull flattening, mandibular brachignathism, reduced ossification of the cranial vault bones, palatoschisis and unfused eyelids. SR etiology is not clearly known, it may be related with genetic, mechanic, endocrine, metabolic, nutrition and infectious factors. The moment of embryonic development, where these factors influence the changes is related with abnormality grade. Although, Chromosomic abnormalities, like chromatid and chromosome breaks, non-homologous pairing of chromosomes was shown. In this study the bitch did not present any metabolic, endocrine or nutritional change, on other hand the queen was submitted to exogenous hormonal treatment to avoid pregnancy, what may be related to SR development. SR is a rare abnormality in dog and cat, fetus radiographic, anatomical and pathological findings confirmed to being this congenital defect, and this are the first reports in Brazil in these species.

Schistosomus Reflexus in a Dog: Case Report

“…Schistosomus reflexus (SR) is sequlae of congenital disorder during embryonic development phase leading to incomplete closure of ventral part of the abdomen, more specifically Linea alba and muscles below to it .Almost every bovine case represents truly defined, Schistosomus and reflexus part of deformity, however, case reports of dog and cat fetuses represents only schistosomus part of abnormality asalso recorded by Ozalp, et al, 2011;Molina, et al, 2012 andBertolo, et al, 2017, which is in agreement with our case finding, (Figure 01 and 02). To the best of our knowledge our case is one of the few reported cases of present category around the country.…”

“…Moreover couple of other cases reported thoracic and abdominal opening leading to evisceration of organs from both the partions of the body asalso reported by many research workers, viz. Mateo and Camón, 2008;Öszoy, et al, 2009 andBertolo, et al, 2017. Etio-pathology of Schistosomus reflexus is not yet clear but may be associated with metabolic, physical, genetic, endocrine and infectious factors alone or in combination during embryonic developmental stage. Some workers reported chromosomal abrasions, chromatid and chromosomal breaks in affected cases which is suggestive of genetic involvement of the syndrome.…”

Schistosomus reflexus with another fetus in a beef heifer

“…In bovine practice, SR is not a common occurrence, with limited numbers suggesting that it accounted for < 1% of dystocias in certain cattle populations. 10 Cases of SR involving twins or multiple fetuses are more limited, with some examples in dairy cattle, 1,11 lambs, 13,15 kids, 14,16,17 buffalo, 18 camels, 5 cats, 19 dogs, 19 and foals. 20 Although SR has occurred in ruminants with twins (Table 2), this is the first report documenting a case of SR in a beef cattle heifer with twins and a ventricular septal defect (VSD).…”

Impacto da pandemia Covid-19 sob as medidas de erradicação da febre aftosa no estado do Amazonas

“…Os fatores que desencadeiam as malformações podem ter causas genéticas, ambientais que ocorre durante a gestação. Vale ressaltar que as deformidades genéticas podem ser passadas de um ou ambos os pais, além de consanguinidade, sendo mais comum em filhotes de raça pura (BERTOLO et al, 2017).…”