Читать книгу Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters - Группа авторов - Страница 131

Expedient pathogen identification can help minimize deaths and maximize successful outcomes from infectious illnesses. Appropriate and adequate sample collection can help with such identification and is one of the most important reasons for a shelter to perform a necropsy. See Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1 The prosector takes a sample of lung. Samples taken for microbiological analysis (culture or PCR) should be taken first during a necropsy. Use a sterile scalpel blade or scissors to take a section, and/or use a sterile swab to sample.

Necropsy has its limitations, and necropsy findings can be inconclusive as to the actual cause of death. Some conditions are simply not characterized by lesions that can be detected either grossly or microscopically. However, it is a very useful method to rule in (or out) infectious/inflammatory vs. OTHER causes of death. It is the intention of this chapter to put clinicians in a confident position to collect samples correctly so that the best material is available for analysis and diagnosis. Samples collected at necropsy can be used for culture, cytology (impression smears), molecular diagnostics (polymerase chain reaction or PCR), serology (antibodies are generally stable in postmortem blood for serology tests), histological analyses (of target tissues or all tissues collected) or other tests.