Methods of diagnosing dirofilariasis.

There are two main methods of diagnosing dirofilariasis:

Analysis for microfilariemia. It is most often performed in two ways: by examining a native blood smear and by the modified Knott's method.

The essence of the native smear test is that a drop of a dog's venous blood is examined under a microscope and looks for live stage 1 larvae.

Modified Knott's method is a study of a blood sample that is added with special reagents, centrifuged, the supernatant is drained, and a dye is added to the precipitate. After staining, the sample is examined under a microscope to look for dead stained larvae.

Disadvantages of these methods:

• - This analysis does not determine the type of heartworm (recall that there are 2 types of heartworm D. Immitis and D. Repens; treatment is very different because D. Repens does not cause lung and heart damage)
• - Sensitivity is 25-30% (this means that out of 100 sick dogs, only 25-30 individuals can be detected with microfilariae)
• - The number of microfilariae does not correlate with the severity of heart and lung damage

The advantage of this method:

• - Non-invasive (the test is performed from venous blood)
• - Speed (the result will be known within 15-30 minutes)
• - Accuracy (Specificity of test systems 100%, sensitivity 64-89%)

The presence of D. Immitis.

It should also be noted that Echocardiography is not a sensitive enough way to diagnose the cardiac form of heartworm disease. In the right heart chambers, heartworms can be seen only in very severely diseased dogs and milder forms of the disease may not be noticed.

For a routine checkup of your pet, it is better to use rapid tests once a year.
And remember, detecting the disease at an early stage and starting therapy on time will lead to a complete recovery of the dog.

With love for animals & nbsp; cardiologists of the "ZOOLUX"