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J Vet Sci. 2008 Jun;9(2):197-202 |
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Percutaneous heartworm removal from dogs with severe heart worm (Dirofilaria immitis) infestation
Seung-Gon Lee, Hyeong-Sun Moon, Changbaig Hyun* |
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Section of Small Animal Internal Medicine, Institute of Veterinary Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 200-701, Korea
* hyun5188@kangwon.ac.kr |
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Canine heart worm disease is often life-threatening due
to its various complications, including right side heart failure,
caval syndrome and pulmonary eosinophilic granulomatosis.
Several preventive medications and melarsomine
have been developed and they are very effective to control
heartworm infestation. However, in a case of severe infestation,
melarsomine therapy often results in an unfavorable
outcome because of the severe immune reaction
caused by rapid killing of the adult worm. Surgical removal
and an interventional method using flexible alligator
forceps have been well described in the literature.
Despite the usefulness of mechanical removal using flexible
alligator forceps, the methodology still needs to be upgraded
for increasing the applicability for treating dogs
with severe infestation. We describe herein a newly developed
percutaneous removal method for heartworms and
this was successfully applied to 4 dogs with severe heartworm
infestation. The follow-up studies also showed favorable
outcomes with no complications.
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