Equine pythiosis in Egypt: clinicopathological findings, detection, identification and genotyping of Pythium insidiosum.

Background: Equine pythiosis is an emerging, devastating disease that is hard to treat. The tumour-like nodular skin masses grow rapidly and the outcome is generally fatal, and thus early diagnosis and intervention are important.

Objectives: (i) To highlight the clinical, histological and haematological findings in pythiosis, and (ii) to evaluate the efficacy of direct sample multiplex-PCR targeting the single nucleotide polymorphisms within the ribosomal DNA region for detection and genotyping of Pythium insidiosum.