Associate Professor LSU Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Disclosure(s):
Shannon D. Dehghanpir, DVM, MS, DACVP (Clinical): No financial relationships to disclose
Presentation Description / Summary: Non-endemic mycoses in dogs and cats encompass a diverse group of fungal and pseudofungal infections that often pose a diagnostic challenge in cytology. While endemic mycoses, such as histoplasmosis and blastomycosis, display distinctive morphologic characteristics that allow for an etiologic diagnosis, fungal organisms that produce hyphae with or without yeast-like forms in tissue require careful morphologic evaluation for accurate categorization. This session will review a structured cytologic approach to non-endemic mycoses, emphasizing detailed assessment of hyphal morphology, the presence or absence of yeast-like forms, and the associated inflammatory response. Participants will learn to differentiate among clinically significant categories, including hyalohyphomycosis, phaeohyphomycosis, oomycosis, and entomophthoromycosis, to ultimately help guide clinical decision-making and prognosis.
Learning Objectives:
Perform a stepwise cytologic evaluation of mycotic infections by distinguishing hyphal versus yeast forms, describing the inflammatory pattern, and characterizing hyphal dimension, contours, septations, branching, pigmentation, and staining properties.
Identify the key cytomorphologic features that differentiate hyalohyphomycosis, phaeohyphomycosis, oomycosis, and entomophthoromycosis.
Use cytopathologic findings or a descriptive report to place non-endemic mycoses into clinical categories that facilitate decision making.
