Leishmania

Quantitative detection of leishmania from the Leishmania donovani complex (L. infantum, L. donovani, L. chagasi).

Reasons for testing

 Diagnostics of feline leishmaniosis in all forms, even chronic forms.
 Status determination of a heathy animal
 Treatment monitoring

Test characteristics

 Real-time PCR
 Limit of detection
 Quantitative analysis (estimation)

Diagnostic samples

 Clinical suspicion – depending on clinical signs:
blood (EDTA) and/or cutaneous scraping and/or lymph node aspirate (lymph node hypertophy) and/or conjunctival cells. We advise you to collect several samples in order to perform a pool analysis.
 Healthy animal: bone marrow (EDTA) preferably
 Treatment monitoring: blood (EDTA) (blood is the earliest sample that become negative) then bone marrow if blood is negative

Result interpretation

 Negative result: absence of leishmania or quantity lower than the limit of detection. Leishmaniosis can be excluded if the analyzed samples were appropriate.
 Positive result: presence of leishmania, compatible with a feline leishmaniosis or a healthy carrier in an endemic area. In the canine population, the rate of asymptomatic carriers in blood was assessed with the Scanelis assay: 6%. If a cutaneous sample was collected, the detected load must be taken into account to interpret the result.

Special case of treatment monitoring : monitoring can be performed on blood which is the first to become negative (followed by bone marrow). After a negative result on blood, bone marrow is the most adapted sample for monitoring.
The animal can be regarded as negative after 2 negative results on bone marrow (the second must be performed 3 months later).

Do not hesitate to contact us for sample collecting advice or help in interpreting the results.