Evaluation of the efficacy of a therapeutic diet for canine atopic dermatitis

Abstract

In the treatment and management of canine atopic dermatitis (CAD), nutritional therapy is used as an adjunct to drug therapy. In this study, we evaluated the clinical usefulness of short-term feeding and the effect on skin barrier function of therapeutic foods whose clinical usefulness in CAD has been confirmed by long-term feeding. This test was conducted as an open test. A total of 16 CAD patients with mild to moderate clinical symptoms were enrolled and fed the test diet for 2 months. Canine Atopic Dermatitis Severity Index (CADESI-04), itch score (PVAS), transepidermal water loss (TEWL), and stratum corneum water content (SSH) were evaluated before the start of the study, and after 1 and 2 months. The median values of CADESI-04 and PVAS significantly decreased after 2 months of the test diet (6.00, 1.50, p<0.05) compared to before (10.5, 3.00); the average TEWL (g/m2·h) significantly decreased after 1 month of the test diet (6.60, p=0.025) compared to before (8.00); and the average SSH (A.U) significantly increased after 2 months of test the diet (18.7, p=0.003) compared to before (12.1). No adverse events related to the test diet were observed. The results of this study suggest that the test diet may be a useful adjunct therapy for CAD that can alleviate skin symptoms in a short period of time and restore skin barrier function.