Treatment and Outcome:
Antibiotic therapy regimes (injectable during hospitalization), oral when discharged:
Enrofloxacin (Baytril®)
Ampicillin-sulbactam (Unasyn®)
Doxycycline – 1 month course
Amoxicillin-clavulanate (Clavamox®)
Azithromycin (Zithromax®) – 12 week course
Deworming
therapy:
febantel+praziquantel+pyrantel
(Drontal Plus®) (receives regular heartworm prevention
with intestinal deworming agent)
Current and lifelong therapy: cyanocobalamin supplementation, initially once weekly x 4 weeks, then maintained at once monthly for life (the family administers
the injections subcutaneously at home)
Key Points:
If you have a patient (Border Collie or not) with signs of
recurrent lethargy/malaise/fever with hemogram abnormalities, give the Internal Medicine Department at
Coral Springs Animal Hospital a call or consider genetic
cyanocobalamin deficiency testing at Michigan State
University
DIAGNOSIS:
Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin) Malabsorption with Proteinuria in Border Collies (similar to ImerslundGräsbeck syndrome (I-GS) in humans)
PROGNOSIS: EXCELLENT!
Citation:
J.C. Fyfe, et al., An exon 53 frameshift mutation in CUBN abrogates cubam function
and causes Imerslund-Gräsbeck syndrome in
dogs, Mol. Genet. Metab. (2013), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymgme.2013.05.006