Period and point prevalence of ocular lesions in canine leishmaniosis

Purpose: In this research were evaluated the period prevalence, type and prognosis of ocular lesions associated to leishmaniasis in 132 dogs visited at Veterinary Teaching Hospital of Messina (Italy) during three years. At the same time, the point prevalence of ocular lesions was evaluated in 127 dogs living in a kennel placed in Palermo. Methods: The dogs were submitted to ophthalmological examination. The diagnosis of leishmaniasis was made by cytological, serological (IFAT) and molecular (RT-PCR) tests. Results: The period prevalence of ocular lesions was 36.36% of all ophthalmic lesions. Most of lesions were bilateral (87.50%) and involved the anterior segment (95.83%) and the posterior segment (16.67%). The most common lesion was uveitis (37.50%). The point prevalence of ocular lesions in 45 kennel dogs was 71.11%. The most frequent ocular lesion was blepharitis (50%); anterior uveitis was observed in 9.37% of cases. Conclusions: The ocular lesions involved up to 2/3 of the animals infected by leishmaniasis. During the follow up of 25 dogs, the recovery of ocular lesions was observed in 48% of cases after the antiprotozoal treatment (N-methylglucamine antimoniate and allopurinol). In 36% of cases there was only an improvement, while 16% was refractory. Most of these had anterior uveitis. The occurrence of anterior uveitis in 7 animals (28%) during or after antiprotozoal treatment can be attributed to the treatment or to a recurrence of the systemic form. The post-treatment uveal immune reaction could explain the difference in the frequency of uveitis between owned dogs and kennel dogs, never treated.