Evaluation of acute phase protein indexes in dogs with leishmaniasis at diagnosis, during and after short-term treatment

An acute phase index based on a combination of acute phase proteins which permitted monitoring the response to therapy of canine leishmaniasis was developed and evaluated in this study. Six dogs naturally infected by Leishmania infantum were treated with meglumine antimoniate (Glucantime, Merial, Lyon, France) 100 mg/kg/day sc, given concurrently for 20 days with allopurinol (Zyloric, Glaxo Wellcome, Madrid, Spain) 30 mg/kg/day po and then, allopurinol alone for one month at the same dosage. Blood samples for acute phase proteins were obtained on different days before and after the beginning of treatment and two groups of indexes were calculated: (1) Indexes that combined one positive and one negative acute phase protein and (2) Indexes that combined two positive and one negative acute phase proteins. All calculated indexes were significantly higher in animals with leishmaniasis compared with clinically healthy dogs (n = 8) and a decrease was observed in all dogs tested during the treatment. Indexes that combined C-reactive protein (CRP) and ceruloplasmin (CP) with other proteins showed greater percentages of decrease that were statistically significant. Among these, the index CRP*CP/Alb was selected as the optimum since it showed a larger and faster decrease compared with the others as well as with individual proteins alone. These results would support the use of selected acute phase indexes, especially the CRP*CP/Alb index, to suspect about a leishmaniotic dogs and to monitor their response to treatment.