Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu khoa học quốc tế về bệnh thú y đề tài: Percutaneous heartworm removal from dogs with severe heart worm (Dirofilaria immitis) infestation | J. Vet. Sci. 2008 9 2 197-202 JOURNAL OF Veterinary Science Percutaneous heartworm removal from dogs with severe heart worm Dirofilaria immitis infestation Seung-Gon Lee Hyeong-Sun Moon Changbaig Hyun Section of Small Animal Internal Medicine Institute of Veterinary Medicine School of Veterinary Medicine Kangwon National University Chuncheon 200-701 Korea 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. Keywoids caval syndrome dirofilariasis dogs heartworm percutaneous removal Introduction The mainstays of heartworm treatment for small animals are monthly macrolide preventives adulticidal therapeutics . melarsomine and thiacetarsamide and mechanical heartworm removal with using retrieval devices known as worm embolectomy depending on the severity of the heartworm infestation 1 4 5 9 . The efficacy of mel-arsomine for adulticidal therapy has already been well described in the literature 6 although the adverse effects related to adulticidal treatment . pulmonary thromboembolism due to .
