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Three aged dogs, all over 15 years old, with multiple seizure events and various neurologic signs such as head turn and ataxia were brought to the referring hospital. Two cases were tentatively diagnosed with intracranial meningioma based on magnetic resonance imaging, and one case was histopathologically confirmed as meningioma at necropsy. All dogs improved after initiation of pulsed high-dose hydroxyurea (HU) treatment. Clinical sign relapses were managed by repeating high-dose HU without obvious side effects. Pulsed high-dose HU can be applied when clinical signs are refractory to the traditionally recommended dosage for intracranial meningioma in dogs.

Canine coronavirus is a single-stranded RNA virus that causes enteritis in dogs of any age. Coronaviral enteritis is seldom definitively diagnosed, since it is usually much less severe than many other types of enteritis and is self-limiting. Conventional diagnostics for the canine coronaviral enteritis such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), virus isolation, and electron microscopic examination are inappropriate for small animal clinics due to the complicated experimental processes involved. Therefore, a commercially available lateral flow test kit based on chromatographic immunoassay techniques was tested to evaluate its performance as a first-line diagnostic test kit that could be used in clinics. The coronavirus antigen test kit detected canine coronavirus-infected dogs with 93.1% sensitivity and 97.5% specificity. The detection limit of the test kit was between 1.97 × 104/mL and 9.85 × 103/mL for samples with a 2- fold serial dilution from 1.25 × 106 TCID50 (TCID50, 50% tissue culture infectious dose). Additionally, the test kit had no cross-reactivity with canine parvovirus, distemper virus, or Escherichia coli. Overall, the commercially available test kit showed good diagnostic performance in a clinical setting, with results similar to those from PCR, confirming their potential for convenient and accurate use in small animal clinics.

Ten dogs were enrolled in this study: two healthy dogs, two obese dogs without other medical issues and six obese dogs with underlying diseases including pemphigus, chronic active hepatitis, hyperadrenocorticism, narcolepsy, otitis media and heartworm infection. Pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to explore the gut bacterial diversity revealed that distal gut bacterial communities of samples from patients with pemphigus, otitis media and narcolepsy consisted primarily of Firmicutes, while the major phylum of the distal gut bacterial communities in patients with chronic active hepatitis and hyperadrenocorticism was Fusobacteria. Proteobacteria were the dominant phylum in heartworm infected obese patients.

An 11-year-old castrated male Maltese weighing 3.6 kg and a 12-year-old intact female Shih-tzu weighing 6.5 kg were admitted to the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital of Chungnam National University with decompensatory congestive heart failure. Diuretic resistance was suspected due to long term diuretic therapy with furosemide. However, the patients improved after the furosemide treatment was changed to torsemide, demonstrating the benefits of application of torsemide to treat diuretic resistance caused by long term use of furosemide. These findings suggest that torsemide should be applied for treatment of diuretic resistance caused by long term use of furosemide.

This study was performed to investigate the effect of Nei Guan (PC-6) moxibustion stimulation on artificial bradycardia of dogs. Xylazine was injected for inducing bradycardia. Rectal temperature, systolic blood pressure, respiratory rate, heart rate were recorded every 10 minutes for 120 minutes. Systolic blood pressure significantly increased on 40 min (p < 0.05) after xylazine injection, compared with those of control group. Heart rate significantly increased on 40 min (p < 0.01), 50 min (p < 0.01), 60 min (p < 0.01), 70 min (p < 0.01), 80 min (p < 0.01), 100 min (p < 0.01), 120min (p < 0.01) after xylazine injection, compared with those of control group. In conclusion, moxibustion of Nei Guan (PC-6) showed recovery effect in xylazine induced bradycardia in dogs.

In this study, the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma (T.) gondii and Bartonella (B.) henselae infection amongstray cats in Daejeon City, Korea was surveyed. A total of seven samples were positive (7/118, 5.93%) for T. gondiiincluding three samples from female cats (3/58, 5.2%) and four samples from male cats (4/60, 6.7%). There was nosignificant difference between the genders. A total 22 samples (22/118, 18.6%) were positive for B. henselae; ninewere from females and 13 were from males. There was no significant difference between genders. Nineteen sampleshad a titer of 1 : 50, two samples had a titer of 1 : 100, and one sample had a titer of 1 : 200. The present studyis the first to use serological tests to analyze B. henselae prevalence among stray cats in Korea.Keywords : Bartonella henselae, cat, Toxoplasma gondii Introduction Toxoplasma (T.) gondii is a worldwide endemic intracellu-lar parasite that infects most warm-blooded vertebratesincluding cat, and human [12, 17, 18]. It is generally knownthat cats are a major spreader of this zoonotic agent by eat-ing or direct contacting with feces, soil, food or water con-taminated oocysts or tissue cysts of T. gondii over a period of1~2 weeks [5]. Cat is the only animal that excretes resistantoocysts into the environment and a single cat may excrete 10million oocysts [15]. Recently, several reports on the preva-lence of T. gondii infection in feral cats in local areas, includ-ing Gyeonggi province [9], Seoul [13] and Daejeon [11] havebeen published.A syndrome of fever, malasise, and regional lymphadenop-athy in people that was frequently associated with contactwith kittens or cats was called cat scratch disease (CDS),which is a zoonosis caused by Bartonella(B.) henselase [2, 4,6]. The natural infection with B. henselase is usually asymp-tomatic, or mild clinical signs such as lymphoadenopathy, sto-matitis, renal, and neurological disease in cats [7, 8]. Infectedcats, even if asymptomatic, may be highly bacteremic forseveral months, and can be a risk factor for human infection[3, 6]. In Korea, large numbers of stray cats become a con-troversial issue, due to their uncontrolled overpopulation,public health, animal welfare [11, 19]. Also, they disrupt peo-ple’s sleep, traffic accidents, and this has been a serious issuesince 2000 [12]. The purpose of this study is re-evaluate the seroprevalenceof T. gondii and B. henselae which are zoonotic pathogenthat can be spread by cats in Daejeon by Enzyme-linkedimmunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect immunofluores-cence antibody test (IFAT).

This study was conducted to determine the serum cardiac troponin I (cTnI) concentrations in clinically normal(uninfected) Korean Jindo dogs and those infected with Dirofilaria (D.) immitis. Forty Korean Jindo dogs (22 females,18 males) were obtained from two kennels in the Boryeong area of Chungnam Province and the Daejeon area, Korea.Significantly higher cTnI concentrations were observed in D. immitis-infected dogs than clinically normal dogs. cTnItesting in addition to thoracic radiography, echocardiography, and electrocardiography shows promise as an additionalmethod for diagnosis of heartworm infection.Keywords : cardiac troponin I, Dirofilaria immitis, Korean Jindo dog Dirofilaria (D.) immitis resides in the pulmonary arteries,right ventricle, and right atrium of infected dogs, cats, ferretsand wild canids in temperate, tropic and subtropic zones [4].Canine heartworm disease can be manifested by thromboem-bolism, pulmonary hypertension, right-sided congestive heartfailure, and ascites. Korea is in the temperate zone and is oneof the enzootic regions of D. immitis [7, 8]. The prevalenceof heartworm disease in Korean dogs was estimated to be28.3% in a survey conducted from 1994 to 1995 that used anantigen test [3]. Using a similar antigen test, a recent surveyof several Korean provinces, conducted from 2001 to 2002,revealed an increase in the prevalence of heartworm infec-tion to 40.0% [7]. However, a recent report showed thatnumbers of cases of canine heartworm disease diagnosedfrom 2007 to 2008 had decreased, although the risk of expo-sure to this nematode in the breeding farms is still high [8].Injury to the sarcomere leads to the detachment of cardiactroponin I (cTnI) from actin, and the subsequent disruption ofthe cell membrane allows leakage of cTnI into the generalcirculation [5]. A high level of cTnI in serum or plasma isconsidered to be a very sensitive and specific indicator ofmyocardial cell damage and necrosis [5]. An elevated cTnIconcentration is associated with poor long-term outcomesand is an independent predictor of mortality [2]. The objec-tive of this study was to determine serum cTnI concentrationin Korean Jindo dogs clinically normal and uninfected orinfected with D. immitis. Forty Korean Jindo dogs (22 females, 18 males; weight,17~23 kg) were obtained from 2 kennels in the Boryeongarea of Chungnam Province and the Daejeon area, Korea.The ages of the dogs ranged from 1 to 12 years (median; 4.1years). They underwent physical examinations, and evalua-tions of serum biochemistries and cTnI concentrations. Thedogs were divided into 2 groups. Twenty dogs were assignedto the clinically normal group and 20 dogs were assigned tothe D. immitis-infected group. None of the D. immitis-infected dogs had laboratory abnormalities or clinical signssuch as exercise intolerance, dyspnea, cough, ascites and car-diac murmurs. To these dogs were therefore classified withmild canine heartworm disease severity [5]. The dogs werefasted for 12 hours prior to blood collection. Blood sampleswere collected through cephalic venipuncture, and each sam-ple was allowed to clot at room temperature for 30 min, andthen centrifuged at 1,500 × g for 5 min. Aliquots of serumwere frozen in plastic tubes at −80