posted
There is a much higher difference in Babesia parasitemia btwn capillary and venous blood in dogs with clinically normal circulation than in dogs with clinically compromised circulation, cause or effect?
I'll re-phrase this:
if you are REALLY ill with Babesia the quantities of parasites found in your venous blood will be about half the quantity found in your capillary blood, ear lobe or finger prick
if you are less ill with Babesia the quantities of parasites found in your venous blood will be about 5 TIMES less than the quantity found in capillary blood.
This once again shows the importance of fighting hypercoagulation if you are suspecting that Babesia might play a part in your illness, as cyto-adherence in the microvasculature appears to be how Babesia persists. It remains in capillaries ready to re-populate.
So whether the hypercoagulation is caused by the infection or whether the hypercoagulation renders the infection more difficult to eradicate is academic. One way or another we need to keep our blood as fluid as possible to have a chance of successfully fighting babesia. Care must be taken not to go overboard and let blood become too thin as this can also be dangerous.
Has anyone tried the earlobe or finger prick swab given to a vet lab to be thoroughly investigated under a microscope?
We tried to have this done at our local lab to have the slides sent to Bowen but the lab assistant blotched it up.
Nelly
Vet Parasitol. 2006 Jun 24; Capillary and venous Babesia canis rossi parasitaemias and their association with outcome of infection and circulatory compromise. Bohm M, Leisewitz AL, Thompson PN, Schoeman JP.
Departments of Companion Animal Clinical Studies, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X04,Onderstepoort, Pretoria 0110, South Africa.
This observational study of 100 dogs naturally infected with Babesia canis rossi determined whether severity of parasitaemia was associated with outcome of infection and documented the relative distribution of parasitised red blood cells pRBC in capillary and venous circulation.
The association between increased parasitaemias and outcome with a clinically compromised circulation was also investigated.
Outcome was defined as either hospitalisation with death, or hospitalisation with eventual recovery or treatment as an outpatient. Dogs were enrolled if large babesias were found on stained thin capillary blood smears made from an ear prick. Thin venous smears were prepared from jugular or cephalic blood. Parasitaemias were manually counted and expressed as the percent pRBC.
Ten dogs died, 50 recovered after hospitalisation and 40 were treated as outpatients.
Venous sampling site did not affect venous parasitaemia P=0.6
Both capillary and venous parasitaemias of dogs that died were significantly higher than those of dogs that recovered after hospitalisation P=0.002 and dogs that were treated as outpatients P<0.0001. When assessing the whole group, capillary parasitaemia median 0.61%, range <0.05-71.6%, interquartile range IQR 0.22-3.75% was significantly higher than venous parasitaemia median 0.14%, range 0-30.6%, IQR 0.046-0.52% with P<0.0001.
The 21 dogs with a clinically compromised circulation were more likely to die and had significantly higher capillary - median 5.98%, range 0.09-71.6%, IQR 2.44-19.41% and venous median 2.81%, .6%, IQR 0.17-9.03% parasitaemias than the 79 dogs with a clinically normal circulation capillary median parasitaemia 0.38%.87%, IQR 0.16-1.42%; venous median parasitaemia 0.096%, range 0-6.13%, -0.33%.
This study shows that high parasitaemia is significantly associated with death in B c rossi infected dogs. The previous clinical suspicion that capillary parasitaemias are usually higher than venous parasitaemias is confirmed. Thus capillary samples are the most appropriate diagnostic samples.
Prior observations that a clinically compromised circulation is associated with death are confirmed. Despite the highly significant association between compromised circulation and higher parasitaemia, it is thought unlikely that parasite burden is the sole trigger for circulatory collapse.
PMID: 16806713
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