Talk:Heartworm

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Contents 1 History 2 Copyright issues? 3 Pulmonary vein and right side of the heart? 4 Photo? 5 Heartworm in other animals?

[edit] History

The "History" section needs to be rewritten to reflect a more international focus. As it currently reads, it gives only the North American viewpoint (I'm a U.S. citizen btw), whereas the disease is virtually world wide in its distribution. I will try to get around to doing the revision unless someone else does it sooner.

The section's better now, but it still needs improvement as regards the original distribution of the disease. Or rather, the Distribution section just following it does; I suppose that was split out of History. Question is, does "southern climes" mean that it occurred only in southern North America, or was it found in other warm climates, or what? --207.176.159.90 23:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it originated in North America and has subsequently ended up in other areas with mosquitos, but I don't have a source for that. --Joelmills 03:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright issues?

most of this entry looks identical to http://www.canismajor.com/dog/hartworm.html the canismajor.com site does not credit wikipedia and in fact claim copyright in the footer. I sthe entry a copy/paste from the above or vice versa?

After a little searching, it seems that the article on canismajor.com was copied and pasted here in July 2005. I used the Internet Archive and it looks like they had that article as far back as 1999. So we stole it, and it's been modified over the last year and a half so it only resembles the original in parts. I guess I know what I'm going to be doing for the next couple of hours. Thanks for catching that. Lazy people like that piss me off (the guy that pasted the article, I mean). -Joelmills 16:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think I got it all. -Joelmills 23:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pulmonary vein and right side of the heart?

I left a note in the article where it says "the now adult worms migrate to the heart through the pulmulnary vein to the right side of the heart..." because the pulmonary vein (at least in humans) leads to the left atrium of the heart. So is this an error? Which side do they really travel to, and which blood vessel do they really use? Many thanks, delldot | talk 02:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and corrected that. You were right. -- Joelmills 02:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"Once the infestation reaches a certain concentration in the lungs, the now adult worms migrate from the pulmonary artery to the right side of the heart and begin to reproduce in ernest, filling the blood with microfilariae. " This sounds a bit strange to me. Do they migrate from the pulmonary artery to the right side of the heart against the flow of blood? I never heard of anything going 'upstream' in the blood. Or do you mean they go pulmonary artery ->lung->pulm. vein -> left side of heart -> body -> right side of the heart? Assuming the vascular system in dogs is similar to the human one. S Sepp 11:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Initially the larvae reach the circulatory system and migrate to the small pulmonary arteries. There they grow into adults and then migrate back (upstream) to the right ventricle. They never enter the pulmonary vein or left side of the heart. The offspring, microfilaria, do go through the whole circulatory system. --Joelmills 17:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo?

There was an Animal Planet video featuring a preserved canine heart with worms. A similar photo will be nice to have in Wikipedia.

I'll get a photo from work, but the heart will have to stay in the jar. Formaldehyde cleanup is a pain in the butt. --Joelmills 19:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heartworm in other animals?

I came here to research heartworm disease in cats, which to my knowledge differs significantly from dogs. Nearly all of the information here pertains to dogs, even though cats are also susceptible. I don't know enough about this to edit the article myself (hence coming here to learn more), but I strongly urge someone who DOES know about feline heartworm disease to share their knowledge. I really hope someone will take this into consideration. As I have found out, no matter how much less prevalent feline heartworm is, it can be just as devastating for the millions of cat owners worldwide.

Give me a few days and I will add that information. --Joelmills 03:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)