CASE REPORT article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1666317
This article is part of the Research TopicInsights in Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology: 2024View all 9 articles
Case report: oleandrin intoxication by inhalation in beef cattle
Provisionally accepted
Anastasia Lisuzzo1*
Luca Spadotto2Michele Muraro3
Sandro Mazzariol2
Cinzia Centelleghe2Elena Soranzo4
Silva Rubini5
Carlo Alessandro Locatelli6
Mauro Dacasto2
Giorgia Taio1
Enrico Fiore1
Matteo Gianesella1- 1Universita degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Medicina Animale Produzioni e Salute, Legnaro, Italy
- 2Universita degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Biomedicina Comparata e Alimentazione, Legnaro, Italy
- 3Veterinary free practioner, Veneto, Italy
- 4Azienda ULSS 6 Euganea, Padua, Italy
- 5Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e dell’Emilia-Romagna, Ferrara, Italy
- 6Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA IRCCS Pavia, Pavia, Italy
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
Oleander (Nerium oleander) contains more than 30 different toxic cardiac glycosides including oleandrin. The intoxication may result by ingestion or inhalation in several species including cattle. A total of 76 of 205 beef cattle died within 30 hours by the burning of oleander mowing. The burning area was located at about 20 meters of the animal housing facility. The clinical signs before death were depression, sternal decubitus, and dyspnea. Macroscopic examination revealed cavitary effusions, diffuse edema and hemorrhagic condition. Histopathological examination confirmed hemorrhagic and edematous findings, cardiac minimal neutrophilic infiltration and hemorrhage, center-lobular hepatic necrosis, multifocal myopathy and necrosis, and chronic bronchitis. Oleandrin was isolated in lung, kidney, intracardiac clot, ruminal content, and liver. The concentration differed among tissues and animals supporting the hypothesis that 74 of 76 animals died for inhalation intoxication by oleander, while other two animals that survived at the hyperacute course died for a secondary oleandrin intoxication by ingestion that aggravate the previous health condition. Therefore, this case represented the first reported case in cattle with inhalation intoxication by oleander to the best of the authors' knowledge.
Keywords: oleandrin, Inhalation, intoxication, Cattle, histopathology
Received: 15 Jul 2025; Accepted: 08 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lisuzzo, Spadotto, Muraro, Mazzariol, Centelleghe, Soranzo, Rubini, Locatelli, Dacasto, Taio, Fiore and Gianesella. 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: Anastasia Lisuzzo, Universita degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Medicina Animale Produzioni e Salute, Legnaro, Italy
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.