Elevation of serum surfactant protein-A with exacerbation in canine eosinophilic pneumonia

A 7-year-old female spayed Labrador Retriever was admitted to our hospital, because ofcough with sputum. She was diagnosed as having canine eosinophilic pneumonia (CEP) basedon blood eosinophilia, bronchial pattern and infiltrative shadow observed on thoracicradiography, bronchiolar obstruction and air-space consolidation predominantly affectingthe right caudal lung lobe, as revealed by computed tomography (CT), predominanteosinophils in CT-guided fine needle aspiration and the clinical course. She exhibited agood response to steroid therapy, and the cough disappeared. The serum surfactant protein(SP)-A level increased with the aggravated symptom and decreased markedly with improvementcompared with the C-reactive protein level and the number of eosinophils. We propose thatserum SP-A level is a good biomarker in CEP.