Determination of canine dirofilariasis by ELISA method and modified Knott's test | Utvrđivanje dirofilarioze pasa primenom ELISA metoda i modifikovanog Knott-ovog testa

Canine dirofilariasis is a parasitic disease. The causative agent is Dirofilaria immitis or Dirofilaria repens. It may appear as skin or as a heart disease. The heart form of the disease is often named heartworm disease, because the adult parasites live in the heart. In the last five years, several cases of dirofilariasis have been reported (Dimitrijević, 1999; Savić-Jevđenić et al., 2004). At the beginning dirofilarias was discovered only as a by-the-way finding during autopsy, but last two years there were more requests for examination of dirofilariosis in alive dogs. Clinical symptoms in dogs with dirofilariosis are occasional coughing, apathy, breathing difficulties, heart failure, progressive loss of weight and rapid fatigue. The variety of symptoms depends on the intensity of infection, and the symptoms depend on the activity of a dog. For the diagnostics of dirofilariosis, the modified Knott’s test or another serology methods may be used. In our research we used 45 blood samples, taken from the dogs in the region where dirofilariosis was detected mostly through autopsy, but also from the dogs with clinical symptoms in which cases the owners or veterinarians had sent the samples for analysis. The modified Knott’s test was used for proving microfilaria in full blood and ELISA test was applied for detection of D. immitis antigen. Out of 35 examined dogs with no clinical symptoms, in 4 dogs the presence of antigene Dirofilaria immitis was detected in blood sera, which is 11% of the examined dogs. The examination of 10 dogs with clinical symptoms (coughing, difficult breathing, apathy and rapid fatigue) showed the presence of microfiliaria in circulation (ELISA test) and the presence of antigen D. immitis in 8 dogs. Therapy was successful in two cases.