Cross-sectional on tritrichomonas foetus infection in Italian cats

Tritrichomonas foetus (Trichomonadida, Tritrichomonadidae) is a flagellated protozoan parasite commonly regarded as a worldwide venereal pathogen of cattle. Also, it has recently been recognized as a cause of large-bowel diarrhoea in domestic cats in many countries (Gookin et al. 1999; Levy et al. 2003). In Italy, only few studies have investigated T. foetus infection in cat populations (Holliday et al. 2009; Mancianti et al. 2015) and no large-scale epidemiological studies have been conducted so far. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to carry a large-scale epidemiologic survey in cat populations across Italy. Freshly individual faecal samples were collected from 267 cats kept in different environments (private household, breeding structures, catteries and colonies) from three different geographical districts of Italy, i.e North-eastern (Site 1, n=114 cats), Central (Site 2, n=90 cats) and Southern (Site 3, n=63 cats). Faecal samples were tested for the detection of T. foetus by a PCR protocol described by Gookin et al. (2002). The same samples were examined by copro-microscopic techniques for the detection of further enteric parasites and by a commercially available Direct Immunofluorescence Assay (DFA) (MeriFluor®) for the recovering of Giardia duodenalis. The overall prevalence of T. foetus infection was 5.2%; all the infected cats showed diarrhoea at the sampling time, and 9 out of 14 positive cats resulted to be co-infected with G. duodenalis, 1 with Toxocara cati and 3 with Dipylidium caninum. The risk factor analysis showed that breed, G. duodenalis and D. caninum infections were significantly associated with the presence of T. foetus. This study confirms the occurrence of T. foetus in cats living in Italy, suggesting that it should always be included in the differential diagnosis of patients referred with large-bowel disease symptoms especially if they are purebred animals and/or infected with other enteric protozoa such as G. duodenalis.