Feline lungworm: biology, epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment

Feline lungworm has long been a high-profile problem in veterinary medicine. The offending parasite has overwhelmingly been considered to be Aelurostrongylus abstrusus, with many early publications citing this as the sole cause of feline lungworm.

However, is has become apparent that two other species can infect the bronchial tract of domestic cats: Eucoleus aerophilus (also known as Capillaria aerophila); and Troglostrongylus brevior. Recent reports have stimulated a scientific interest in knowing more about these parasites and more about lungworm disease in cats.

This interest is necessary to encourage and increase the understanding of the similarities and characteristics, ecological and epidemiological, of these nematodes so efficacious control programmes can be developed.

In this article, the authors review the disease and the parasites to give veterinary professionals a better understanding of it.

All three of these parasites are nematodes; A. abstrusus and T. brevior are members of the metastrongyloidae family and E. aerophilus is from the trichuridae family. The cat lungworm (A. abstrusus) historically has been regarded as the most important lung parasite in domestic cats in terms of species specificity, knowledge, geographical distribution and its role in feline medicine, with adult stages found in nodules in the bronchioles, alveolar ducts and alveoli of infected hosts. E. aerophilus has long been found in wild carnivores but, in recent years, it has also been reported in domestic cats and even humans. T. brevior has been regarded as a parasite of wild felids, but reports of infection in domestic cats have been increasing, mostly in young animals (Figure 1) (Diakou et al, 2014; Traversa and Di Cesare, 2016).