Gastrointestinal granuloma due to Candida albicans in an immunocompetent cat

Duchaussoy, Anne-Claire; Rose, Annie; Talbot, Jessica J.; Barrs, Vanessa R.

On histopathology of the duodenal mass, the submucosa was markedly expanded by irregular connective tissue, fibroblasts, endothelium, and multifocal to coalescing infiltrates of macrophages, neutrophils, lymphocytes and plasma cells, consistent with moderate to marked, and chronic, focally extensive, pyogranulomatous enteritis involving the sub-mucosa. There was evidence of thickening of duodenal muscle layers, as noted on ultrasonography. This was attributed mainly to oedema and regional myofibre degeneration along with subserosal accumulations of eosinophils, neutrophils occasional macrophages and lymphocytes. Further fungal elements could not be identified on H&E or periodic acid Schiff stains on the excisional biopsy sample. Culture of the duodenal mass yielded a pure culture of narrownecked ovoid, budding, non-capsulate yeasts, which produced germ tubes within 3 h of incubation in serum broth at 35°C. A panfungal PCR amplification of the ITS1-5.8s-ITS2 region of ribosomal DNA was performed. On comparative sequence analysis there was 100% homology with reference strains of C. albicans (GenBank KP131671.1, KP 131658.1) (Irinyi, Serena et al. 2015). Antifungal susceptibility testing was performed at the National Mycology Reference Centre, Adelaide (Table 1) .