Reliability of clinical diagnosis and laboratory testing techniques currently used for identification of canine parvovirus enteritis in clinical settings

FAZ, Mirna; MARTÍNEZ, José Simón; QUIJANO-HERNÁNDEZ, Israel; FAJARDO, Raúl

Various techniques of viral identification are used for the definitive confirmation of infection by CPV-2, for example, rapid tests based on immunochromatography are widely used by clinicians, because the procedure is easy, fast and accessible. Additionally, it doesn't require sample preparation or sending to a specialized laboratory for analysis. The varying sensitivity of this test is its downside; several studies have indicated that its sensitivity ranges from 50 to 100% [8, 9] , and in our study, the comparative sensitivity with nPCR was 66.6%. Some studies have suggested that the low technique sensitivity is due to the need of a large viral particles quantities to be shed into the stool of dogs to obtain a positive diagnosis [5, 8, 10, 18] . The use of this technique must be reconsidered, as higher probability of false negative results is expected. In order to prevent this, further techniques, with higher sensitivities must be used [19] .