AffectedAnimals: Dogs and cats. Overall, cats are infected by heartworms much less commonly, even in areas in which heavily infected dogs are present. Male cats tend to be infected more commonly and have a larger worm burden than female cats, mostly because male cats spend more time roaming outside and have less resistance to infection than female cats. Cats that spend significant amounts of ti...

background: dirofilaria immitis and dirofilaria repens are the most common species of filarial nematodes described in the dogs. a single-step multiplex pcr was applied to detect and differentiate simultaneously and unequivocally d. im­mitis and d. repens on dna extracted from canine peripheral blood and besides to detect the seroprevalance of d. immitis by elisa in elazig province, turkey. a pc...

Pulmonary dirofilariasis (PD), caused by Dirofilaria immitis (D. immitis), the dog heartworm, is not common in humans, though we recently encountered 4 cases. Chest X-ray images from annual health examinations showed a single spherical nodule in the inferior or middle portion of the right lung in each patient. None of the patients showed any clinical symptoms and had no contact with dogs. Hemat...

Subcutaneous dirofilariasis is a helminthic zoonosis that is nowadays reported with relative frequency in dogs in several parts of the world [2, 16, 19]. Its most important agent has clearly been identified in Dirofilaria (Nochtiella) repens, but other species (Dirofilaria immitis, Dipetalonema reconditum) can also be found in the subcutaneous tissues of dogs, according to the different geograp...

The canine heartworm, Dirofilaria immitis, is among the most important parasites of dogs in United States and worldwide, may cause severe potentially fatal disease. Current diagnostic recommendations rely on serological detection an adult female antigen, visualization microfilariae blood. Therefore, a reliable diagnosis can be only performed approximately six months post-infection. There growin...

This study was performed to investigate whethere there is cross-reactivity between Dirofilaria immitis and three intestinal nematodes of dogs. In ELISA, D. immitis-infected dog sera obtained at the 4th molting stage (9-11 weeks) and microfilaremic stage (25-30 weeks) were shown to be highly reactive with crude extract of T. canis. In immunoblotting, some antigenic fractions, 44, 57, 88, 100 kDa...

The usefulness of excretory/secretory (E/S) products of adult Dirofilaria immitis for the diagnosis of human dirofilariosis was evaluated in 97 human sera using an ELISA and a Western Blot analysis with E/S antigens. Results of the ELISA analysis show that in healthy individuals from an endemic area seropositivity is high (22%). Immuno Blot analysis shows that the reaction pattern with E/S anti...

An immature female worm, Dirofilaria immitis, was isolated from the scrotum of a 14-month-old child. This is the first identification of human dirofilariosis caused by D. immitis in a relatively Northern region (Moscow) of the Russian Federation. The parasite was diagnosed by means of morphological examination of the worm, confirmed by PCR assay. This case raises questions about the range of th...

Wuchereria bancrofti, Dirofilaria immitis, and Dirofilaria repens are filarial nematodes transmitted by mosquitoes belonging to Culex, Aedes, and Anopheles genera. Screening by vector dissection is a tiresome technique. We aimed to screen filarial parasites in their vectors by single and multiplex PCR and evaluate the usefulness of multiplex PCR as a rapid xenomonitoring and simultaneous differ...

Six hundred and eleven random-source dogs (338 male, 273 female) one year of age or older, from six sections of the city of Recife, Pernambuco, were examined antemortem for circulating microfilariae Dirofilaria immitis and Dipetalonema reconditum adult heartworm (D. immitis) antigen, and examined postmortem for adult heartworms. The prevalence of heartworm infection was 2.3% (14/611), as determ...