Cryogenic preservation of Dirofilaria immitis microfilariae, reactivation and completion of the life-cycle in the mosquito and vertebrate hosts

Table 3 Adult D. immitis recovery counts from ferrets on Day 133 (and Day 113 as indicated) from microfilariae freshly collected from a dog or cryopreserved

Treatment^a	Animal ID	Live worm counts
Treatment^a	Animal ID	Males	Females	Total	% Recovery
T01—FCmf	C79	10	9	19	76
	C88	6	12	18	72
	C63^b	7	8	15	60
	Mean worm counts	7.7	9.7	17.3	69.3
	SD	2.1	2.1	2.1	8.3
T02—CPmf	C61	8	10	18	72
	C64	6	5	11	44
	C83^b	4	6	10	40
	Mean worm counts	6.0	7.0	13.0	52.0
	SD	2.0	2.6	4.4	17.4
	Percentage reduction of mean worm counts from T01			24.9%
P-value T01:T02 (two-tailed Student’s t-test)				0.1801

SD Standard deviation
^aAnimals allotted to T01 received L3s derived from mf freshly collected from a dog (FCmf); animals allotted to T02 received L3s derived from mf had been cryopreserved for 4 weeks (CPmf)
^bAnimals removed from the study on Day 113

ISSN: 1756-3305