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This week we would like to discuss an extremely common intestinal parasite of dogs and cats and many other animals. Almost all mammals can have some form of roundworms. Typically, these are the "spaghetti-like worms" you can see in the vomitus and feces of puppies and kittens. Since they can cause serious problems in humans (usually children) I wanted to bring attention to the dangers they can present. What are they?
Roundworms are big worms. Typically they are white, about the diameter of a spaghetti-strand and about 4 inches in length. Often times kittens or puppies vomit one up or we are horrified when we see them in the feces.
the stomach, intestines and leading to the liver) . The larva are then carried by the circulatory system to the lungs where they can pierce the walls of tiny lung blood vessels (capillaries) and gain entry into the airways (alveoli and bronchioles). The cilia (little whiskers that move foreign objects) lining the airways then move the larva up the bronchi and windpipe until they are coughed up and swallowed. Once they are swallowed they have become large enough that they can continue their maturation to adult egg-laying roundworms in the small intestine. Somatic cycle... A second type of roundworm life cycle occurs when dogs or cats develop "age resistance" at about 6 months of age or older. Instead of the larval form reaching the lungs via the blood and going through the "coughing up, swallowing and growing to adult in the intestine" phase another phenomenon occurs. The so-called "age resistance" alerts the dog or cats immune system to the possible presence of roundworm larva. When a larva enters the body, the immune system traps it in walled-off granuloma's that may appear in nearly any tissue. I have personally seen them in liver tissue when doing post-morteum exams. Once trapped in granuloma's, the larva can live for years occasionally escaping to become re-trapped in other granuloma's. During the last 1/3 of pregnancy this migration of these juvenile roundworms is greatly accelerated allowing them to find their way into the placenta and fetus or into the mammary glands to infect nursing puppies. When the bitch cleans the puppies she also may swallow infective eggs. Complicated isn't it? Maybe a graphic will help...
More important to the pet's health are the migrating juveniles. As they pass thru the liver and lungs they can cause verminous pneumonia or hepatitis. Signs of roundworm infestation include: dull hair coat, pot-bellied unthrify appearance, poor weight gain, vomiting, coughing, intermittant diarrhea or constipation. Heavily infested puppies or kittens occasionally die of worm-related pneumonia.
The most often diagnosed illness is loss of sight in one eye. The roundworm larva is trapped in the optic disk behind the retina of the eye and a granuloma forms. These granuloma's have been mistaken for retinoblastoma's (cancer of the retina) and the eye was mistakenly removed. I believe the reason the problem is so often diagnosed in the eye is because we know it is happening. We experience loss of vision; the eye is removed and the larva is discovered. Remember what I said above? When roundworm larva are encased in granuloma's they are impossible to kill with any anti-parasitic drugs and they are also impossible to detect. How many cases of persons seizuring with no apparent cause could be related to roundworm larva? It is impossible to know because the granuloma's are
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