Pathomorphological studies on respiratory Aspergillosis in a japanese quail farm

Abstract

Three ailing and eight breeder quail carcasses of both sexes at 10 weeks old were brought to Department of Veterinary Pathology for clinical diagnosis and postmortem examination respectively with the history of regular mortality for the past five days. Clinically, ailing birds showed dullness, depression with respiratory distress and nasal discharges. Gross examination revealed yellow to whitish caseous nodules on the lung parenchyma. Air sacs were thickened with multiple tiny whitish nodules. Histopathological examination of air sacs revealed granulomatous inflammation characterised by the presence of tubuliform structures which were surrounded by caseous exudate and infiltration of macrophages and lymphocytes. Lungs revealed caseous central core mass contained numerous septate fungi and was surrounded by heavy infiltration of heterophils, macrophages, lymphocytes and giant cells. This was confirmed by special stains namely Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) and Grocott methenamine silver nitrate (GMS) which showed pink and black coloured septate hyphae respectively. Based on the cultural characteristics, gross, cytology, histopathological and histochemical findings, it was concluded as aspergillosis infection in the breeder quail farm.