Abstract
A three-year-old male jindo with generalized skin lesions (including seborrhea, hyperk- eratosis, alopecia, papules, and ecchymoses), pruritus lymph node enlargement, and fever was brought to Veterinary Teaching Hospital, College of Veterinary Medicine, Chungbuk National Uni- versity. There were no laboratory findings for parasites and fungi in the hair and skin But, the com- plete blood counts (CBC) showed leukocytosis and severe cosinophilia, It was suspected to be an inflammatory and allergic dermatitis. Thus, prednisoIone (0.5 mg/kg PO, BID for 1 week) and ampi- cillin (10 mg/kg PO, BID for 1 week given. One week later, pruritus and ecchymoses were reduced. These treatments were repeated for 7 day again. Three months later, the dog was presented again due to the relapse and exacerbation of the clinical signs. The signs were as follows; severe pru- ritus, vesicobullous skin lesions, anorexia, emaciation, lameness, and welling of carpal joints that showed inflammatory skin lesion and draining of synovia-like fluid. The values of WBC counts were returned to normal ranges. In contrast, eosinophilia was still observed. Coombs test for patient RBC and serum were negative. Hypoalbuminemia (2.5g/dl) was shown by serum chemistry. The uri- nalysis revealed and presence of leukocytes. Luxation finding of right radial carpal joint by polyarthritis was shown in radiography of affected joints.Lupus eryhematosus(LE) cells also appeared in peripheral blood and synovial fluid of affected joints. Definitely, antinuclear antibody (ANA) of patient serum using feline peripheral blood mononuclear cells was detected by all immu- nofluorescence. Based on these findings such as sedum ANA-Positive. major signs (skin disease, non- erosive polyarthritis with soft tissue swelling. and proteinuria), minor signs (fever), and LE cell-pos- itive, a diagnosis of systemic lupus crythematosus (SLE) was mad\ulcorner in this dog. The dog with SLE was administered with Pre(2.0 mg/kg PO, BID for first 4 week and then QOD) to inhibit the production of autoantibodies and with ampicillin (10 mg/kg PO, BID for first 4 weeks and then QOD) to prevent the secondary infection. The condition of this dog was monitored every 2 weeks by physical examinations, radiography, CBC, serum chemistry and urinalyais. At 8th week of treat- ment, the state of SLE evaluated by physical examinations and laboratory findings was markedly improved except for proteinura.
