Prevalence of Dermatophytes in Pet Shop Young Cats

Abstract

The present study determined the prevalence of dermatophytes in 101 young cats with and without skin lesions, in eight pet shops using a culture method. Dermatophytes were detected in four cats (4.0%), suggesting that the prevalence of dermatophytes is not high among pet shop young cats in Japan. Only one of the four cats with dermatophytes showed a cutaneous lesion. All of the isolated dermatophytes were identified as Microsporum canis by direct sequencing of amplicons obtained from PCR targeting the region including ITS-1 of the rRNA gene.