Abstract
This chapter discusses noninduced disease entity not associated with infectious agents or neoplasia. It focuses primarily on those conditions that either result in recognized clinical signs or are likely to be seen in the postmortem examination of rats. Rats suffering from nonneoplastic, noninfectious diseases are likely to present to the clinician with ulcerative dermatitis, “ringtail” malocclusion, or renal failure. In the laboratory, the incidence of noninfectious, nonneoplastic causes of spontaneous death has been estimated at 29% in males and 12% of females, mostly associated with age-related diseases. In specific pathogen-free rats, the most significant sources of morbidity are neoplasia, chronic progressive nephropathy, myocardial degeneration, and polyarteritis nodosa. Several lesions reviewed include radiculoneuropathy, skeletal muscle degeneration, reproductive senescence, and bile duct hyperplasia. Many of these diseases may be coincidental, that is, appearing the same time, such as hypertension, chronic progressive nephropathy, polyarteritis nodosa, and myocardial degeneration. The chapter also discusses the aging process and associated cellular degeneration.
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