The cerebrospinal fluid is useful to diagnosis, monitoring and prognosis canine neurological diseases. Among them distemper is considered the most common encephalitis in dogs and several alterations can be observed in this fluid with this disease. Since the early abnormalities related to this virus were possibly verified, CSF samples of dogs infected by distemper virus, with or without neurological signs were collected. The samples were evaluated according to colour, turbidity, pH, specific gravity, glucose, total proteins, and cytological examination, and then were compared to CSF samples of healthy dogs. The parameters related to colour, turbidity, pH, specific gravity, glucose showed to be similar between all animals studied in this attempt. The CSF total protein concentration revealed higher values in animals with neurological signs of distemper, as the celularity, whose pleocytosis with predominance of mononuclear cells was observed in 50% of dogs among this group.
distemper; cerebrospinal fluid; dogs; central nervous system
