Is it possible to submit more than the liver? That leaves kind of a narrow viewpoint for the vet doesn't it? As far as IBD is concerned, the best tissue to sample is the pancreas, then outer brain tissue, (the cause of the encephalitis, thus the symptoms), the liver and kidneys, intestinal and oral mucusa, and on, and on in pretty much that order of importance.

The key is that not all IBD snakes will show inclusions, or definetely not in all tissues. It is also important to realize that if not IBD, you really want to know what else caused the symptoms. A negative inclusion search doesn't mean anything. For example, if no inclusions are found in your liver samples, then what? What killed this snake, and what do you need to watch out for? Is this still IBD or was it toxicity? Or another virus... Pretty much the only thing that can relieve you of the threat of IBD is finding something else that caused these symptoms. In the future, fresh blood samples would also be helpfull prior to euthanasia as they may hint if this is infectious or organ failure or what not.

Hope this proves interesting

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