Dirofilaria immitis causes life-threatening heart disease in dogs, thus screening of dog populations is important. Lens-free technology (LFT) is a low-cost imaging technique based on light diffraction that allows computerized recognition of small objects in holographic images. We evaluated an algorithm capable of recognizing microfilariae in canine whole blood using the LFT. We examined 3 groups of 10 EDTA blood specimens, from dogs with microfilaremia (group A), healthy dogs (B), and dogs with hematologic modifications other than microfilaremia (C). The LFT analyzer photographed repeated series of 5 images of all samples. The algorithm declared a sample positive if a microfilaria was detected on ≥1, ≥2, or ≥3 of the 5 images of a series. Microfilariae were detected visually in the images in 9 of 10 cases in group A; no microfilariae were seen in the images from groups B and C. Of the 30 cases, there were 14, 4, and only 3 false-positives with the 1 of 5, 2 of 5, and 3 of 5 image cutoffs, respectively. There were no false-negatives, regardless of cutoff. LFT seems useful for detecting microfilaria and could have application in clinical pathology.

丝虫病会导致威胁犬生命的心脏病，因此对犬群进行筛查非常重要。无透镜技术（LFT）是一种基于光衍射的低成本成像技术，可以对全息图像中的小物体进行计算机识别。我们评估了一种能够使用LFT识别犬全血中的微丝虫病的算法。我们检查了3组10份EDTA血液样本，分别来自患有微丝虫病的犬（A组），健康犬（B）和具有血液学改变而不是微丝虫病（C）的犬。LFT分析仪拍摄了所有样品的5幅图像的重复序列。如果在系列的5张图像中的≥1，≥2或≥3上检测到微丝虫病，该算法将样本宣布为阳性。A组10例中有9例在图像中肉眼可见微丝aria病。在B组和C组的图像中未见微丝虫病。在30例病例中，分别有14个，4个和5个假阳性的假阳性分别为5个，2个，5个和3个。不存在假阴性，而与截止值无关。LFT似乎可用于检测微丝aria病，并可能在临床病理学中得到应用。