Renal pathology associated with visceral gout in ducks

Abstract

Visceral gout is a metabolic disease of birds characterized by deposition of urate crystals in visceral organs. Though occurrence of visceral gout is common in chicken, reports from ducks and descriptions of its renal pathology are scarce. The present study describes visceral gout in Kuttanad duck, a native breed and in a White Pekin duck. A Kuttanad and a White Pekin duck of about one and a half years of age and reared under intensive system and brought for postmortem examination to Department of Veterinary Pathology, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Pookode formed the material for the study. Grossly, visceral organs such as kidney, liver and heart showed diffuse deposition of chalky white material on the surfaces. Ureters were dilated and engorged with urate crystals. Histologically, kidney revealed extensive degeneration of epithelial cells of proximal and distal convoluted tubules with urate crystals in the lumen. Characteristic lesions noticed in kidneys of both cases were glomerular sclerosis, severe interstitial fibrosis causing tubular atrophy and mild infiltration of mononuclear inflammatory cells in the interstitium. This chronic lesion in kidney might be the primary reason for impaired uric acid excretion and deposition of uric acid crystals in various internal organs of the ducks.