Abstract
This report offers a consensus opinion on the diagnosis, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of leptospirosis in dogs, an important zoonosis. Clinical signs of leptospirosis in dogs relate to development of renal disease, hepatic disease, uveitis, and pulmonary hemorrhage. Disease may follow periods of high rainfall, and can occur in dogs roaming in proximity to water sources, farm animals, or wildlife, or dogs residing in suburban environments. Diagnosis is based on acute and convalescent phase antibody titers by the microscopic agglutination test (MAT), with or without use of polymerase chain reaction assays. There is considerable interlaboratory variation in MAT results, and the MAT does not accurately predict the infecting serogroup. The recommended treatment for optimal clearance of the organism from renal tubules is doxycycline, 5 mg/kg PO q12h, for 14 days. Annual vaccination can prevent leptospirosis caused by serovars included in the vaccine and is recommended for dogs at risk of infection.
Highlights
Consensus Statements of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) provide the veterinary community with up-to-date information on the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of clinically important animal diseases
It is submitted to the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, where it is edited prior to publication
Clinical signs of leptospirosis in dogs relate to development of renal disease, hepatic disease, uveitis, and pulmonary hemorrhage
Summary
Consensus Statements of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) provide the veterinary community with up-to-date information on the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of clinically important animal diseases. Leptospirosis is a zoonotic bacterial disease with a worldwide distribution, and is an emerging infectious disease in humans[1] and in dogs.[2,3] It has been reported in over 150 mammalian species.[4] Leptospira spp. are thin, motile spirochetes with a hook-shaped end Both saprophytic and pathogenic species exist in nature. From the Department of Medicine & Epidemiology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA (Sykes); the Department of Small Animal Medicine, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany (Hartmann); the Department of Clinical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO (Lunn); the Department of Comparative Pathobiology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN (Moore); the Bacterial Special Pathogens Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA (Stoddard); and the Department of Clinical Sciences, Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, Ithaca, NY (Goldstein). Since the introduction of bivalent Icterohaemorrhagiae and Canicola vaccines, more widespread involvement of additional serovars has been suspected, including Grippotyphosa, Pomona, Bratislava, and Autumnalis.[9,10,11,12,13,14] Increased
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