Use of blood smears for bacteremia identification in turtles of the Trachemys genus

Authors

  • Julián Vaillard Programa Único de Internado en Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia: Fauna Silvestre. Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
  • Carlos Vásquez Peláez Departamento de Genética y Bioestadística. Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
  • Liliana Aurora Ramos Garduño Departamento de Etología, Fauna Silvestre y Animales de Laboratorio. Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19230/jonnpr.2516

Keywords:

Blood smear, chelonian, turtles, Trachemys, bacteremia, Gram stain

Abstract

Aims: Bacteremia is a common finding in chelonian. The aim of this study is to identify this bacteremia using blood smears stained with Gram.

Methods and Material: We did Squash blood smears from Trachemys patients over 100 grams and without previous treatment. The blood smears were stained with the Gram technique and examined  under the immersion objective 100x.

Results: We gathered a total of 28 samples. Only 14% of the samples were positive to Gram + cocci. The absence of clinical signs and hematologic alterations in the samples, classifies the presences of these bacteria as sample contamination.

Conclusions: The blood smear is a useful technique for bacteremia identification. However, the specificity and sensibility of the test its unknown, therefore it is necessary to perform new studies which can provide insight of its efficacy.

 

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Published

2018-07-06

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 8: (August 2018) JONNPR 2018;3(8):558-673

Section

Original

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