The presence of Dirofilaria repens microfilariae in the blood samples of dogs from X clinics

Master‘s thesis consists of introduction, review of literature, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusions, recommendations,suggestions, and list of literature. The thesis consists of 37 pages and 63 sources of literature were used. The data is presented in 8 figures, and 4 pictures. The main goal of the research was to evaluate the presence of Dirofilaria repens microfilariae in the blood samples from dogs treated in X clinics in Lithuania. The study was performed in the veterinary clinics in the Kaunas, Vilnius and Klaipėda districts, where 207 venous and peripheral blood samples from dogs were examined by direct smear microscopy. One sample was examined by Knott‘s method. It was shown, that 13 (6,3 %) of investigated blood samples were positive. More often microfilaremia occurred in large dog breeds (12,7 %) in dogs which were kept outdoors (13,3 %), in older dogs between 10-15 years of age (10,4 % ) and not treated by antiparasitic drugs (14,5 %). The comparison of distribution between dogs sexes and different districts of Lithuania was unsignificant. It was shown, that majority of infected dogs had no clinical signs of disease (84,7 %)