CONCLUSION

Diagnosing dermatophytosis in companion animals can be challenging. However, with appropriate quality control and practice, your in-house dermatophyte cultures will be more successful—and you may even reduce your need to send samples to a reference laboratory.

Nevertheless, if optimal culture media storage and dermatophyte culture incubation conditions, daily observation of fungal colony growth and media color change, and subsequent microscopic identification of suspect fungal organisms are not feasible in your clinic, then submitting samples of surface skin debris and hair (placed in a sterile red top tube) from suspect cases to a veterinary reference laboratory for fungal culture is recommended to avoid misdiagnosis. Even some veterinary dermatologists elect this option to minimize the chance of false negative or false positive dermatophyte culture results.

REFERENCES

1. Scott DW, Miller WH, Griffin CE. Muller and Kirk's small animal dermatology. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: WB Saunders Co, 2001;121-124.

2. Moriello KA, Newbury S. Recommendations for the management and treatment of dermatophytosis in animal shelters. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract 2006;36:89-114.

3. Hirsh DC, Maclachlan NJ, Walker RL. Veterinary microbiology. 2nd ed. Oxford, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004;273-278.

4. Moriello KA. Management of dermatophyte infections in catteries and multiple-cat households. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract 1990;20:1457-1474.

5. Vetlab Supply. DermatoPlate/DermatoPlate-Duo/Dermatoplate S-Duo Culture System product information and instructions. Available at: http://www.vetlab.com/. Accessed May 20, 2010.

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