Detection of Leishmania parasites in the testis of a dog affected by orchitis: Case report

Background: transmission of canine leishmaniasis (canl),a severe infection caused by l. infantum,usually occurs through the sand fly bite to the vertebrate host. a venereal route of transmission has also been suggested,but this issue is still controversial. findings. here,we report a case of a dog affected by orchitis showing a clinical profile of l. infantum infection. by exploiting a real-time pcr assay,we detected a significantly higher dna load of the parasite in the lymph node and testis than in blood and urine samples collected from the dog. conclusions: our results suggest that: 1) l. infantum infection can be associated with testicular lesions in naturally infected dogs; 2) genital involvement could result in shedding of the parasites in the semen,favoring venereal transmission of the disease. © 2012 manna et al.; licensee biomed central ltd.