TY - JOUR
TI - Efficacy of rifampicin in the treatment of experimental acute canine
monocytic ehrlichiosis
AU - Theodorou, Konstantina
AU - Mylonakis, Mathios E.
AU - Siarkou, Victoria
AU - I.
AU - Leontides, Leonidas
AU - Koutinas, Alexander F.
AU - Koutinas,
AU - Christos K.
AU - Kritsepi-Konstantinou, Maria
AU - Batzias, George and
AU - Flouraki, Eugenia
AU - Eyal, Osnat
AU - Kontos, Vassilios
AU - Harrus,
AU - Shimon
JO - The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy
PY - 2013
VL - 68
TODO - 7
SP - 1619-1626
PB - Oxford University Press
SN - null
TODO - 10.1093/jac/dkt053
TODO - dogs; Ehrlichia canis; therapy
TODO - To assess the efficacy of rifampicin in achieving clinical and
haematological recovery and clearing infection in dogs with
experimentally induced acute monocytic ehrlichiosis.
Five Ehrlichia canis-infected Beagle dogs were treated with rifampicin
(10 mg/kg/24 h orally for 3 weeks), nine E. canis-infected dogs received
no treatment (infected untreated dogs) and two dogs served as uninfected
controls. Clinical score, platelet counts, immunofluorescent antibody
titres and PCR detection of E. canis-specific DNA in blood, bone marrow
and spleen aspirates were evaluated on post-inoculation days 21 (start
of rifampicin), 42 (end of rifampicin) and 98 (end of the study).
By day 21 post-inoculation, all infected dogs became clinically ill and
thrombocytopenic, seroconverted and were PCR positive in at least one
tissue. Clinical scores and antibody titres did not differ between the
treated and infected untreated dogs throughout the study. The
rifampicin-treated dogs experienced an earlier resolution of their
thrombocytopenia (KaplanMeier survival plot, P0.048), and the median
platelet counts were significantly higher in the treated compared with
the infected untreated dogs on post-inoculation days 42 (P0.0233) and 98
(P0.0195). At the end of the study, three treated and six untreated
infected dogs remained PCR positive in one tissue each.
The rifampicin treatment regimen applied in this study hastened
haematological recovery, but was inconsistent in eliminating the acute
E. canis infection.
ER -