Feline cytauxzoonosis
Cytauxzoon felis is a protozoan hemoparasite of wild and domestic cats. In domestic cats, it causes severe clinical disease with high mortality. The genus Cytauxzoon was originally described in 1948 to accommodate an organism causing a fatal illness in an African duiker.
Organisms of the genus Cytauxzoon exist in two distinct tissue forms: an erythrocyte phase termed a piroplasm and a tissue phase known as a schizont.
Organisms of the genus Cytauxzoon are closely related to those of the genera Babesia and Theileria. Cytauxzoon organisms differ from Babesia organisms in that babesial organisms typically are exclusively intraerythrocytic, lacking a separate phase in other tissue cells. Piroplasms of some of the “small” Babesia spp are morphologically indistinguishable from those of C felis.
Theilerial organisms also have erythrocytic and nonerythrocytic phases; however, the tissue phase of Theileria spp occurs as numerous distinct schizonts within lymphocytes, whereas in Cytauxzoon spp, a single large schizont occurs within macrophages.
Authors: James H. Meinkoth, A. Alan Kocan
Source: https://www.vetsmall.theclinics.com/
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