Veterinary Clinical Medicine-I (General and Systemic)

DISORDERS OF WHITE BLOOD CELLS IN FARM ANIMALS

Common and Uncommon Disorders of White Blood Cells in Farm Animals

• Enzootic bovine leukosis
• Myelogenous leukemia, rarely , in all species
• Erythroblastic, plasma cell, monocytic leukemias rarer still
• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia in horses
• Monomyelocytic leukemia in horses
• Eosionphilic myeproliferative disease in horses
• Bovine leukocyte adhesion deficiency an example of a leukemia but the pathogenesis is of a leucopenia because of the defect in neutrophil function

Clinical findings

• Lymph node enlargement
• Splenomegaly
• Poor performance
• Dullness
• Weight loss

Additional signs of related lesions include

• Ventral edema
• Predisposition to infection
• Mucosal pallor
• Hemic murmur
• Mucosal petechiation

Clinical pathology

• Leukocytosis many immature cells
• Proliferative lesions in bone marrow biopsy

Leukopenia

• Etiology
  • Virus disease, e.g, hog cholera
  • Some bacterial infections; leukocytes sequested to site,e.g. peracute diffuse peritonitis
  • In parcytopenia when all marrow functions depressed;
    • Ptaqlioside poisoning
    • Radiation injury
    • Furazolidone poisoning
    • Granulocytopenic disease
    • Mycotoxins e.g. Stachybotryps spp.
    • Chediak-Higashi syndrome
    • Toluene poisoning
    • Trichlorethylene extracted soybean meal poisoning
• Clinical findings
  • No specific signs
  • Susceptible to infection
• Clinical pathology
  • Pancytopenia