Histopathological and parasite density analyses of skin of dogs naturally infected with <i>L. infantum</i>.

<p>Animals were categorized according to their clinical status into asymptomatic (AD, <i>n</i> = 10), oligosymptomatic (OD, <i>n</i> = 10), or symptomatic (SD, <i>n</i> = 15) or categorized according to skin parasite density into low (LP, <i>n</i> = 12), medium (MP, <i>n</i> = 11), or high (HP, <i>n</i> = 12) parasite density. The control group is represented by CD (<i>n</i> = 16). Photomicrographs of cutaneous cellular infiltrates from dogs naturally inflected by <i>L. infantum</i> stained by hematoxylin and eosin (<b>A</b>). Representative cellular infiltrates of study groups are depicted: Control dogs (1 and 2 ); AD or LP (3 and 4); OD or MP (5 and 6); SD or HP (7 and 8). <b>Left panels:</b> Slides shown at 10× magnification; bar, 100 µm. <b>Right panels:</b> Slides shown at 40× magnification; bar, 25 µm. Correlation between quantitative analysis of cutaneous cellular infiltrate with clinical status (<b>B</b>) or skin parasite density (<b>C</b>) are presented. Correlation between clinical groups and skin parasite density is also presented (<b>D</b>). The results are expressed as the mean number of cells present in cutaneous cellular infiltrates evaluated at 20 fields plus standard deviation. In (<b>D</b>), the results are expressed as the mean of the log number of skin parasite density plus standard deviation. Significant differences (<i>p</i><0.05) compared with CD and AD or LP groups are indicated by symbols * and #, respectively. Spearman's correlation indexes (<i>r</i> and <i>p</i> values) are shown on the graphs when applicable.