Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals, Facultat de Veterinària, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
Ecuphar Veterinaria SLU, Barcelona, Spain.
Parasit Vectors. 2022 May 10;15(1):134. doi: 10.1186/s13071-022-05251-5.
There are several screening tools for detecting Leishmania infantum infection in dogs and various preventive measures to protect against it. Some studies have investigated them, but not many have described their current use. The aim of this study was to investigate which preventive measures and serological screening tools for L. infantum infection were employed from 2012 to 2018 in dogs from different endemic European countries.
A set of electronic datasheets was completed for each dog from several veterinary centres. Classification of preventive measures included: (1) repellents, (2) vaccines and (3) immunomodulators. Classification of serological tests included the: (1) direct agglutination test (DAT), (2) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), (3) indirect immunofluorescence (IFI), (4) rapid tests and (5) other assays. Dogs were also classified depending on their risk of exposure and living area.
Information from 3762 dogs was gathered. Preventive measures were applied in 91.5% of dogs and the most frequently used were repellents (86.2%) followed by vaccines (39.8%) and Leisguard (15.3%). The different types of repellents (collar and spot-on) were used similarly. A combination of a vaccine and repellents was preferred in the high-risk group while the low-risk preferred a combination of Leisguard and a repellent (Chi-square test: X = 88.41, df = 10, P < 0.001). Furthermore, all preventive measures were similarly used through the years except for repellents, which were predicted to have a small increase of use each year. Regarding serological screening tools, the most used were rapid and ELISA tests. Rapid tests, ELISA tests and DAT were used similarly through the years, but a significant change was found in the use of IFI and other assays whose use decreased a little each year.
Repellents were the preferred measure, while vaccines and Leisguard were second-line options. Some dogs were not treated by any measures, which highlights the need for dog owner education. Moreover, there seems to be a preference for rapid tests in the clinical setting to detect specific L. infantum antibodies while ELISA or IFI are less often employed. This underlines an increasing problem, as qualitative rapid tests have a variable diagnostic performance limiting the adequate diagnosis of seropositive dogs in endemic areas.
有几种用于检测犬利什曼原虫感染的筛查工具和各种预防措施来预防感染。一些研究已经对其进行了调查，但没有多少研究描述了它们的当前使用情况。本研究的目的是调查 2012 年至 2018 年期间，来自不同欧洲流行地区的犬使用了哪些预防措施和针对利什曼原虫感染的血清学筛查工具。
为来自多个兽医中心的每只狗填写了一组电子数据表。预防措施的分类包括：（1）驱虫剂，（2）疫苗和（3）免疫调节剂。血清学检测的分类包括：（1）直接凝集试验（DAT），（2）酶联免疫吸附试验（ELISA），（3）间接免疫荧光（IFI），（4）快速检测和（5）其他检测。还根据狗的暴露风险和生活区域对其进行了分类。
共收集了 3762 只狗的信息。91.5%的狗使用了预防措施，最常用的是驱虫剂（86.2%），其次是疫苗（39.8%）和 Leisguard（15.3%）。不同类型的驱虫剂（项圈和滴剂）使用情况相似。高危组更喜欢疫苗和驱虫剂的组合，而低危组更喜欢 Leisguard 和驱虫剂的组合（卡方检验：X=88.41，df=10，P<0.001）。此外，除驱虫剂外，所有预防措施的使用情况在这几年中均相似，驱虫剂的使用预计每年都会略有增加。关于血清学筛查工具，最常用的是快速检测和 ELISA 检测。快速检测、ELISA 检测和 DAT 的使用情况在这几年中相似，但 IFI 和其他检测的使用情况发生了显著变化，其使用量每年略有下降。
驱虫剂是首选措施，而疫苗和 Leisguard 是二线选择。有些狗没有接受任何治疗，这凸显了对狗主人进行教育的必要性。此外，临床环境中似乎更倾向于使用快速检测来检测特定的利什曼原虫抗体，而较少使用 ELISA 或 IFI。这突显了一个日益严重的问题，因为定性快速检测的诊断性能存在差异，限制了在流行地区对血清阳性犬的充分诊断。
