ORIGINAL PAPER First description of naturally acquired Tritrichomonas foetus infection in a Persian cattery in Spain Guadalupe Miró & Leticia Hernández & Ana Montoya & David Arranz-Solís & Diana Dado & Silvia Rojo-Montejo & Jesús Alberto Mendoza-Ibarra & Luís Miguel Ortega-Mora & Susana Pedraza-Díaz Received: 26 February 2011 /Accepted: 16 March 2011 /Published online: 21 April 2011 # Springer-Verlag 2011 Abstract Tritrichomonas foetus has been identified as the causative agent of feline intestinal trichomonosis, charac- terized by clinical signs of chronic large bowel diarrhoea. This disease has been reported in cats from the USA, Europe and Australia. However, its epidemiology is still unclear. The aim of the present study was to describe T. foetus infection in a Persian cattery in Spain. T. foetus infection was sequentially diagnosed in 20 cats by direct faecal smear examined under the microscope, specific culture (In Pouch TF medium) and PCR. A standard coprological sedimentation method was also performed in order to screen for other intestinal parasites in all the cats included. In addition, sera were tested for IgG antibodies against Leishmania infantum, Toxoplasma gondii, and for the detection of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukaemia virus (FeLV). Five out of 20 cats were positive for T. foetus (25%), two of them by microscopy, culture and PCR and three by culture and PCR. No association was found between T. foetus infection and age or sex. L. infantum and T. gondii seroprevalence rates were 15% and 10%, respectively. The prevalence of FeLV p27 antigen and of FIV antibodies in the study population was zero. Cystoisospora spp. oocysts were detected in one cat. These preliminary results show that the transmission of T. foetus infection in cluster conditions may occur between asymptomatic cats and young or immunocompromised animals. Introduction Tritrichomonas foetus is a protozoan traditionally recog- nized as the epidemiological agent responsible for bovine trichomonosis (Felleisen 1999). However, in the last decades, T. foetus has also been isolated from faeces of cats with severe chronic diarrhoea. Beginning in 1996, reports of large numbers of trichomonads in feline faeces have been reported in the literature (Payne and Artzer 2009); most reports have been from USA (Gookin et al. 1999, 2004; Levy et al. 2003), UK (Mardell and Sparkes 2006), Switzerland (Frey et al. 2009), Italy (Holliday et al. 2009), Greece (Xenoulis et al. 2010) and Australia (Bell et al. 2010). Apparently, the infection is most commonly seen in catteries of and purebred show cats, where the organism is presumably spread between cats by close and direct contact. Clinical signs associated with feline trichomo- nosis range from asymptomatic infection to severe large- bowel disease which concurs with chronic diarrhoea (Pham 2009; Stockdale et al. 2009). The aim of the present study was to describe the first clinical cases in Spain in a Persian cattery. Material and methods A 7-month-old unspayed Persian tortoiseshell cat was presented to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of Madrid (UCM) with a history of persistent and profuse large intestinal diarrhoea with an average of 20 depositions per day over five consecutive months. The animal had been acquired in a Persian breeding centre with 2 months of age. It had been treated for diarrhoea with penicillin, sulphona- mides and metronidazole. None of these therapies were G. Miró (*) : L. Hernández : A. Montoya : D. Arranz-Solís : D. Dado : S. Rojo-Montejo : J. A. Mendoza-Ibarra : L. M. Ortega-Mora : S. Pedraza-Díaz Departamento de Sanidad Animal, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Avda. Puerta de Hierro s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain e-mail: gmiro@vet.ucm.es Parasitol Res (2011) 109:1151–1154 DOI 10.1007/s00436-011-2359-7