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Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report

BACKGROUND: Cyanide is one of the most rapidly acting toxins affecting cattle, with poisoning typically occurring following ingestion of cyanogenic plants. Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), is one such potentially toxic cyanogenic plant. This case report details fatalities in an Irish herd following the...

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Autores principales: Kennedy, Aideen, Brennan, Audrey, Mannion, Celine, Sheehan, Maresa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7989689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33762021
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13620-021-00188-0
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author Kennedy, Aideen
Brennan, Audrey
Mannion, Celine
Sheehan, Maresa
author_facet Kennedy, Aideen
Brennan, Audrey
Mannion, Celine
Sheehan, Maresa
author_sort Kennedy, Aideen
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Cyanide is one of the most rapidly acting toxins affecting cattle, with poisoning typically occurring following ingestion of cyanogenic plants. Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), is one such potentially toxic cyanogenic plant. This case report details fatalities in an Irish herd following the ingestion of laurel and aims to raise awareness of the potential risk that access to laurel hedges poses to farm animals. CASE PRESENTATION: Over a twelve-day period, the death occurred of 36 dairy-cross weanlings; the majority (22 weanlings) died over a two-day period. Two days following entry to a field bounded by a laurel hedge, the weanlings displayed signs of lethargy and profuse green diarrhoea. In the majority of animals there was a limited response to treatment with antimicrobials, vitamin B complex and fluid therapy. Recumbency and death ensued. Cyanosis was noted terminally. Two weanlings were submitted for post mortem examination. Laurel leaves were identified in the rumen contents of one weanling. Post mortem findings and additional test results on cohort animals suggested a number of pathological processes may have been involved in the animals, possibly complicating/exacerbating the effects of laurel ingestion. However, cyanide was considered a factor in a least some of the casualties and arrangements were made to test for cyanide on blood samples from a random selection of seven cohort animals. Although collected one week after exposure to the laurel hedge, toxic cyanide levels were recorded in a sample from one animal, which subsequently died. CONCLUSIONS: The large fatality rate serves as a timely reminder to include plant poisoning as a differential diagnosis when dealing with large numbers of rapid fatalities. Failure to thoroughly examine rumen contents and collect a detailed history in this case, could easily have allowed death to be attributed to other causes and the involvement of cyanide toxicity to be missed. In cases of individual or group fatalities, history is invaluable and recent entry to new grazing areas or any potential diet change or access to garden plants should be thoroughly investigated.
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spelling pubmed-79896892021-03-25 Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report Kennedy, Aideen Brennan, Audrey Mannion, Celine Sheehan, Maresa Ir Vet J Case Report BACKGROUND: Cyanide is one of the most rapidly acting toxins affecting cattle, with poisoning typically occurring following ingestion of cyanogenic plants. Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), is one such potentially toxic cyanogenic plant. This case report details fatalities in an Irish herd following the ingestion of laurel and aims to raise awareness of the potential risk that access to laurel hedges poses to farm animals. CASE PRESENTATION: Over a twelve-day period, the death occurred of 36 dairy-cross weanlings; the majority (22 weanlings) died over a two-day period. Two days following entry to a field bounded by a laurel hedge, the weanlings displayed signs of lethargy and profuse green diarrhoea. In the majority of animals there was a limited response to treatment with antimicrobials, vitamin B complex and fluid therapy. Recumbency and death ensued. Cyanosis was noted terminally. Two weanlings were submitted for post mortem examination. Laurel leaves were identified in the rumen contents of one weanling. Post mortem findings and additional test results on cohort animals suggested a number of pathological processes may have been involved in the animals, possibly complicating/exacerbating the effects of laurel ingestion. However, cyanide was considered a factor in a least some of the casualties and arrangements were made to test for cyanide on blood samples from a random selection of seven cohort animals. Although collected one week after exposure to the laurel hedge, toxic cyanide levels were recorded in a sample from one animal, which subsequently died. CONCLUSIONS: The large fatality rate serves as a timely reminder to include plant poisoning as a differential diagnosis when dealing with large numbers of rapid fatalities. Failure to thoroughly examine rumen contents and collect a detailed history in this case, could easily have allowed death to be attributed to other causes and the involvement of cyanide toxicity to be missed. In cases of individual or group fatalities, history is invaluable and recent entry to new grazing areas or any potential diet change or access to garden plants should be thoroughly investigated. BioMed Central 2021-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC7989689/ /pubmed/33762021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13620-021-00188-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Case Report
Kennedy, Aideen
Brennan, Audrey
Mannion, Celine
Sheehan, Maresa
Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report
title Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report
title_full Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report
title_fullStr Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report
title_full_unstemmed Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report
title_short Suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report
title_sort suspected cyanide toxicity in cattle associated with ingestion of laurel - a case report
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7989689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33762021
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13620-021-00188-0
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