History: Horse, 10 years.
Diagnosis: Colon: Marked acute multifocal infarction of the mucosa.
Description: Colonic mucosa shows multifocal infarction due to severe necrotizing vasculitis. Similar lesions were found in the small intestine. Lesions were predominantly round and constantly limited by a hemorrhagic margin.
Comments: Clinical symptoms included enteritis and atony of the descending colon. Necropsy revealed moderate thoracal effusion with about 3.5 l fibrinous and serosanguinous fluid as well as a diffuse fibrinous pleuritis. The lung showed a severe multifocal embolic pneumonia with hemorrhages. Other dominant findings were a marked diffuse fibrinous peritonitis in addition to severe multifocal infarction of the kidney, stomach, and small intestine. Histologically, a necrotizing vasculitis with intravascular thrombosis and intralesional fungal hyphae was detected in the lung, the heart muscle, intestine, kidney as well as the brain. Morphological features were consistent with Aspergillus spp..
Picture by: Nikola Heblinski, Department of Veterinary Pathology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Author: Nikola Heblinski, Department of Veterinary Pathology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany