The present investigation was conducted to rule out canine distemper (CD) diseases in Indian wild felids (Asiatic lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, clouded leopards, leopard cats, jungle cats, civet cats, fishing cat, and jaguar). The collected samples were screened for CD virus (CDV) by histopathology (HP), immunohistochemistry (IHC) and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) targeting H gene and N gene. The HP and IHC of suspected samples portrayed that 22 [11 leopards, 6 lions, 3 tigers, 1 snow leopard and 1 civet cat] out of 129 (17.05%) wild felids were positive for CD. The major pathological consequences were observed in spleen, lung, kidney and brain. The syncytia and intranuclear as well as intracytoplasmic eosinophilic inclusion bodies were seen in CDV infected cells. Although the histopathological lesions in spleen were more specific and consistent, however, the severe demyelinated leukoencephalitis (usually expected in CD infected dog) was not observed in the brain of any Indian wild felids. Conversely, the CDV antigen has been portrayed via IHC in pancreatic islets of Langerhans of tiger species for the first time in this study. Moreover, the concurrent CD and babesiosis has also been observed in a lioness without a usual coffee-coloured urine. The N gene and H gene of CDV isolates were amplified, sequenced and subsequently constructed the phylogenetic tree. The phylogenetic analysis of H gene revealed that the CDV isolates from Indian lion formed separate clade with CDV isolates from Indian dog and Indian palm civet cat. Furthermore, two CDV isolates from Indian tigers formed clade with Onderstepoort vaccine strain and CDV isolates from dogs of Uttar Pradesh, USA and UK. Evidently, CDV is circulating in Indian wild felids and causing diseases in them.
The present study describes five cases of canine oral tumours presented in the veterinary polyclinic IVRI. Grossly, the tumour masses were observed as gingival enlargement or papillary growths with or without ulcerations.The biopsy samples were collected in 10% NBF for histopathological diagnosis. Histopathologically, one case of acanthomatous ameloblastoma and two cases each of odontogenic fibroma and malignant melanoma were diagnosed.
The present study was aimed to evaluate the correlation between cytological and histopathological techniques in diagnosis of canine skin tumours. A total of 66 cytological and histopathologic specimens were collected from dogs suspected for the tumorous growths. Cytologically, 55/66 cases were diagnosed as neoplasms, while 52/66 cases were confirmed as neoplastic growths by histopathology. As histology is gold standard for tumour diagnosis, cytological diagnosis showed 94.54% true positive and 5.46% false positives cases. True positive cases included 38 epithelial tumours, 3 mesenchymal tumours and 11 round cell tumours. Nine cases diagnosed non-neoplastic in cytology were confirmed by histopathology as true negative, however, two cases were found to be false negative. Sensitivity and specificity of cytological diagnosis was found to be 96.29% and 75%, respectively, which indicated that cytological method can provide an early insight to diagnosis of skin tumours in canine.