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Introduction: The family Mycobacteriaceae contains over 188 species, most of which are saprophytic non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM). In wildlife, a variety of different NTM can be found, with different reports about their pathogenic potential. A pathogenic member of NTM is Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis (MAP), which can infect farmed and wild ruminants. It causes paratuberculosis which is an economically important chronic disease. Infected farm animals are considered to be the source of infection in wild animals. Wildlife, on the other hand, is thought to be a reservoir for certain members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), such as M. caprae , which causes tuberculosis in cattle and red deer., Methods: Switzerland implemented a surveillance program for tuberculosis in wild animals in 2014. Here, we describe the results from the mycobacterial culture of lymph node samples collected from red deer, roe deer, chamois, ibex, and badgers collected within this surveillance program from 2020 to 2022. Overall, samples from 548 animals were checked macroscopically for tuberculosis-like lesions., Results: In total, 88 animals (16.1%), which either had lesions in their lymph nodes or were male and aged older than 5 years, were investigated using mycobacterial culture. In total, 25 animals (28.4%) were positive for NTM, while no MTBC was detected. The most often identified NTM was M. vaccae , followed by M. avium . Most animals positive for NTM did not show any macroscopic lesions. Furthermore, MAP was isolated from the head lymph nodes of two male red deer. Neither of the two MAP-positive animals had any macroscopic lesions in their head lymph nodes or any other signs of disease., Discussion: The shooting sites of the two MAP-positive animals were located in Alpine pastures used for grazing of cattle during summer, which confirms that species transmission can occur when contaminated pastures are used by different species. In agreement with other studies, the occurrence of MAP in red deer was quite low. However, so far, MAP was mostly isolated from feces and intestinal lymph nodes of wild animals. This is the first detection of MAP in the head lymph nodes of red deer in Switzerland., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Lienhard, Friedel, Paganini, Hilbe, Scherrer and Schmitt.)

Accurate tumour staging has a profound impact on the care and prognosis of oncologic patients. Due to the presence of multiple lymph nodes (LNs) in the mandibular lymphocentrum, clinicians may not know which specific LN they are sampling during routine fine needle aspirations, which introduces a source of uncertainty in accurately determining patient clinical stage. The objective of this cadaveric study was to determine the success of targeting specific mandibular LNs by palpation alone, verified by computed tomography (CT). A 1.5-inch, 22-gauge needle was inserted into the targeted LN (selected by drawing with the equal sample sizes of the left/right mandibular lymphocentrum and the lateral/medial node) and success was evaluated by CT images in transverse, sagittal and dorsal views. The overall success rate of inserting the needle into the targeted LN was 55.9%. One variable was significantly associated with successful needle insertion: lateral (vs. medial) LN location (p = .019). In addition, the distance from the LN to the ventral skin surface in the successful group appeared to be shorter compared to the unsuccessful group (3.37 mm [1.55-6.46] vs. 4.9 mm [1.57-17.79], p = .066). These findings suggest that physical accessibility of the LN is the most important factor for successful needle insertion using palpation. Palpation-based sampling of specific mandibular LNs is often inaccurate and if targeted sampling of a particular LN is required, additional methods should be used to guide accurate sample acquisition., (© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)