Background -Dermatophytosis is a superficial fungal skin disease of cats and dogs. The most common pathogens of small animals belong to the genera Microsporum and Trichophyton. It is an important skin disease because it is contagious, infectious and can be transmitted to people.Objectives -The objective of this document is to review the existing literature and provide consensus recommendations for veterinary clinicians and lay people on the diagnosis and treatment of dermatophytosis in cats and dogs. Conclusions -No one diagnostic test was identified as the gold standard. Successful treatment requires concurrent use of systemic oral antifungals and topical disinfection of the hair coat. Wood's lamp and direct examinations have good positive and negative predictability, systemic antifungal drugs have a wide margin of safety and physical cleaning is most important for decontamination of the exposed environments. Finally, serious complications of animal-human transmission are exceedingly rare. Methods - Clinical Consensus GuidelinesClinical Consensus Guidelines (CCGs) provide the veterinary community with current information on the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of commonly encountered dermatological conditions. The World Association for Veterinary Dermatology (WAVD) oversees selection of relevant topics, identification of panel members possessing the expertise to draft the Clinical Consensus Guidelines, and any other aspects required to assure the integrity of the process. The statements are derived from evidence-based medicine whenever possible, however when such evidence does not exist then expert opinions would be utilized by the members of the panel. A draft is prepared by the panel, followed by a presentation of the guidelines at major national and/or international veterinary meetings. Access to the guidelines will be available on the WAVD web site. Solicitation for input from WAVD member organizations and affiliate and provisional member groups will result in the incorporation of this feedback into the guidelines. The final CCG manuscript will be submitted to the Veterinary Dermatology journal, where it is reviewed and edited before publication. The authors are solely responsible for the content of the statements.

In an open uncontrolled study, 30 dogs with atopy were given six different antihistamines over a period of 10 weeks. During the first six weeks the dogs were given each of the antihistamines, hydroxyzine, trimeprazine, chlorpheniramine, clemastine, promethazine and cyproheptadine for a seven-day period. The order of drug administration was randomised in each case. After assessment of clinical improvement, based on the drug's ability to control pruritus, the most successful drug was given for a further four weeks. Where several drugs performed equally well in the control of signs, the second drug was selected on cost, ease of administration and lack of side effects. More than 60 per cent of the dogs benefited from antihistamine therapy and few side effects were noted. Hydroxyzine in this trial, proved to be the most effective antihistamine in controlling pruritus, although all of the drugs were shown to have the ability to control pruritus in some dogs.

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Canine food allergy can be defined as a nonseasonal, pruritic skin disorder of dogs that is associated with the ingestion of a substance found in the dog's diet. This study records the use of a proprietary dried fish, corn and soya-based diet for the investigation and maintenance of food allergic dogs when fed initially as a restricted allergen diet and then as a maintenance diet after challenge. All the dogs showed evidence of pruritic skin disease and in addition demonstrated gastrointestinal signs. These included the presence of faecal mucus and blood, tenesmus and increased faecal frequency; all the signs associated with colitis. Both cutaneous and gastrointestinal signs resolved when an elimination diet was fed and could be reproduced when the animal was appropriately challenged. Ten dogs were trialled on a home cooked diet of fish and potato and 10 dogs on the proprietary complete food. All the dogs were challenged to identify their food allergies. Nineteen of the dogs have subsequently been successfully maintained on the proprietary food.