In canine demodicosis, it has been suggested that congenital or acquired disfunction of host immune system is associated with the onset or aggravation of the disease. In this report, we introduce a canine case of recurrent, refractory, and generalized form of juvenile-onset demodicosis whose skin lesions were improved after concomitant use of nigerooligosaccaride (NOS) supplementation, which was reported to have a potential to activate immune function in humans, with conventional therapy. Our finding suggests that NOS is available as an adjunct therapy for controlling systemic demodicosis in dogs, at least in certain cases.

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A-6-year-old, female, Somali was presented with erosive nodule on the entrance to the left ear canal and subcutaneous swelling at the left parotid region. The cat was treated with antimicrobials, then skin biopsy was performed. Histopathological examination revealed numerous round or oval, PAS-positive, yeast-like organisms, and Cryptococcus neoformans was isolated with fungal culture. This cat was diagnosed as having cryptococcosis, and treated with once daily oral itraconazole (ICZ) 7 mg/kg. Two months later, skin lesions were disappeared, but serum cryptococcal antigen was still positive after consecutive 4 months ICZ administration. Then ICZ pulse therapy was carried out for next 6 months, and finally conduced the antigen negative.

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Skin tumors on the lumbosacral area and the head in a German shepherd dog and a domestic cat, respectively, were removed surgically. Histopathologically, both tumors consist of extremely enlarged cysts resembling hair follicles. Multiplication of basophilic tumor cells and ghost cells were observed in the follicular wall and the lumens, respectively. Thus, the tumors were diagnosed as trichoepithelioma. We then computed the incidence rates of trichoepithelioma in histopathological specimens of tumors in dogs and cats submitted to a single diagnostic laboratory. The incidence rate of the tumor in the dog was 3.26%, whereas it was only 0.36% in the cat. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report on trichoepithelioma in cats in Japan. It is also suggested that the low incidence rate of trichoepithelioma is associated with infrequent reporting of the tumor in feline cases.

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