Unsuccessful Cyclosporine Plus Prednisolone Therapy for Autoimmune Meningoencephalitis in Three Dogs

抄録

A 4-year-old female Maltese (case 1), a 9-year-old castrated male Shih-Tzu (case 2) and 2-year-old female Pomeranian (case 3) were presented because of neurological signs such as head tilt, ataxia, circling and paresis. Three cases were tentatively diagnosed to meningoencephalitis of unknown etiology based on computed tomography scan and cerebrospinal fluid analysis. All patients were managed with cyclosporine plus prednisolone therapy. The survival times of three patients were 170, 70 and 21 days, respectively. After cases expired, we performed necropsy and histopathological examination for definitive diagnosis. Based on the necropsy, histopathological and immunohistochemical examinations, case 1, 2 and 3 were definitely diagnosed to necrotizing meningoencephalitis, necrotizing leukoencephlaitis and granulomatous meningoencephalitis, respectively. This case report demonstrated that the clinical findings, brain CT characteristics, histopathological and immunohistochemical features of NME, NLE and GME in dogs and discussed about the reason of relatively short survival times under cyclosporine plus prednisolone therapy.