Pathology of viral leukoencephalomyelitis of goats

Summary

The morphologic changes of viral leukoencephalomyelitis of goats (VLG), an afebrile paralytic disease of 2–4 month old kids, were studied in 13 naturally infected goats: 11 during the first 5–22 days of clinical disease and two that survived 8 months and 3 years after onset of clinical signs. Lesions in the early clinical phase of the disease included interstitial pneumonia and widely disseminated myelinoclastic perivascular lesions in the brain and spinal cord. In the central nervous system, hypertrophied and hyperplastic reticulin fibers of the vascular sheath encompassed an inflammatory cell infiltrate composed of lymphocytes, plasma cells, and macrophages. Occasionally, malacia occurred, and several animals had transverse myelitis. Neuronal necrosis and neuronophagia were not features of the disease. Lesions were most frequent in the subpia and subependyma. Pulmonary lesions were not present in goats that survived the initial clinical phase of the disease, but myelin had disappeared from large areas of the spinal cord and from small foci in the brain. Nodular accumulations of mononuclear cells and small perivascular cuffs were also present in the central nervous system. VLG resembles visna in the topographic distribution and myelinoclastic nature of its lesions. Like visna, it bears some resemblance to post-infectious encephalitis of man.