Blood Morphology in Dogs with Dirofilariasis

The article addresses the results of a study of blood morphology parameters in healthy dogs vs. dogs diagnosed with dirofilariasis. In the group of infected animals, the most significant difference was 4.9 higher granulocytes. Another significant contribution is eosinophils and, to a lesser extent, neutrophils and monocytes. In blood of infected and healthy animals, no difference was found in terms of the count of red blood cells, haemoglobin, and haematocrit. Anisocytosis value in red blood cells is probably related to the compensated processes, and differs insignificantly between healthy and infected animal groups. Blood morphology of infected animals is characterized by mild reticulocytosis, not exceeding 20% of physiological norm. In the group of infected dogs, platelet count corresponds to the lower boundary of physiological norm. In healthy animals’ group, platelets and platelet crit is physiologically normal. Leukopenia, lymphocytopenia are detected. Apparently, the reason behind the findings is age of the animals and degree of their adaptation to the progress of the invasive process.