CASE REPORT article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Clinical, Anatomical, and Comparative Pathology
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovations in Veterinary Diagnostics for Enhancing Animal Health and WelfareView all 14 articles
CASE REPORT: STEROID-RESPONSIVE IMMUNE-MEDIATED THYROIDITIS IN A YOUNG DOG WITH MULTI-SYSTEMIC PYOGRANULOMATOUS INFLAMMATION
Provisionally accepted
Kyle L. Granger, Jr.*
Claire Tucker
Amanda GarrickPaula YoonChris Olmo
A Russell MoorePaula A Schaffer
Sarah Shropshire
Kelly E Hall- Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
ABSTRACT: A 3-year-old male neutered Posavec Hound presented with rapidly progressive cervical swelling, respiratory distress, and systemic inflammation. Diagnostics confirmed severe hypothyroidism (TT4 < 0.5 µg/dL, TSH 5.54 ng/dL), elevated thyroglobulin autoantibodies (TgAA 131%), hyperglobulinemia, hypoalbuminemia, and mild ionized hypercalcemia. Imaging showed bilateral thyroid enlargement with cavitated necrosis, pulmonary nodules, and lymphadenopathy. Cytology demonstrated pyogranulomatous inflammation without infectious organisms, and infectious disease screening was negative. Protein electrophoresis and immunofixation demonstrated elevated IgG4, suggestive of immune-mediated dysregulation. The dog responded rapidly to prednisolone and thyroid hormone supplementation, with resolution of clinical signs and normalization of inflammatory markers by ~60 days. This report describes a unique case of immune-mediated thyroiditis with systemic inflammatory involvement that responded to steroids, emphasizing the importance of considering immune-mediated thyroiditis as a differential diagnosis for acute cervical neck swelling in a young dog with concurrent pulmonary involvement.
Keywords: Immune-mediated disease, Canine hypothyroidism, Thyroiditis, dog, steroid-responsive disease
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 11 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Granger, Jr., Tucker, Garrick, Yoon, Olmo, Moore, Schaffer, Shropshire and Hall. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kyle L. Granger, Jr., kyle.granger@thrivepet.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.