Bacterial urinary tract infection and subclinical bacteriuria in dogs receiving antineoplastic chemotherapy.

Julia Harrer, Csilla Fejös, Yury Zablotski, Johannes Hirschberger, Georg Wolf, Alexandra Rieger, Christian Mayer, Roswitha Dorsch

Journal of veterinary internal medicine 2022 May

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Immunosuppressive treatment with glucocorticoids and cyclosporine increases the risk for positive urine cultures (PUCs) in dogs. To investigate the prevalence and incidence of PUC in dogs diagnosed with cancer and treated with antineoplastic chemotherapy while distinguishing between subclinical bacteriuria (SB) and urinary tract infection (UTI). Forty-six client-owned dogs with nonurogenital cancer treated with antineoplastic chemotherapy. Prospective observational longitudinal clinical study. Dogs in which a urine culture was performed before the start of and at least once during antineoplastic chemotherapy were included. A McNemar's test was used to investigate if the prevalence of PUC increased during antineoplastic chemotherapy. Positive urine cultures were categorized into SB and UTI and multiple PUCs from the same dog and category were grouped together as 1 episode of PUC. Urine culture was positive in 21/185 urine samples in 8/46 dogs. Antineoplastic chemotherapy did not influence the prevalence of PUC (P = 1.00), which was 11% (5/46 dogs; 95% confidence interval: 5-23%) before the start of and 13% (6/46 dogs; 95% confidence interval: 6-26%) during antineoplastic chemotherapy. Eight dogs had 10 episodes of PUC; 7/10 episodes were classified as SB, and in 3/10 episodes UTI (chronic prostatitis, prostatic abscess, and emphysematous cystitis) was diagnosed. Escherichia coli was the most common pathogen, isolated in 9/10 episodes. We did not find evidence that antineoplastic chemotherapy is a major predisposing factor for the development of PUC. Most dogs with PUC had SB. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

Citation

Julia Harrer, Csilla Fejös, Yury Zablotski, Johannes Hirschberger, Georg Wolf, Alexandra Rieger, Christian Mayer, Roswitha Dorsch. Bacterial urinary tract infection and subclinical bacteriuria in dogs receiving antineoplastic chemotherapy. Journal of veterinary internal medicine. 2022 May;36(3):1005-1015