An open study was carried out for dermo-cosmetic evaluation of a spot-on formulation composed of essential oils and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The spot-on formulation was used on animals as sole therapy, or concurrent therapy with previous treatments which did not affect the evaluation of the test product. Each animal was treated with the spot-on by application of one pipette per week (total of 4 applications). In all cases, clinical features including sheen, hair loss, dandruff, odour and skin balance (dry or oily) were scored with criteria used in human cosmetics to obtain the improvement evolution (improvement %) and the percentage of improved cases (positive response %), before and after 30 days of treatment for each clinical feature. The following results were obtained on 22 dogs: sheen improvement % was +40% with a positive response of 73%; hair loss improvement % was +51% with a positive response of 77%; dandruff improvement % was +36% with a positive response of 55%; odour improvement % was +36% with a positive response of 50%; skin balance improvement % was +31% with a positive response of 64%. The following results were obtained on 8 cats: sheen improvement % was +64% with a positive response of 75%; hair loss improvement % was +64% with a positive response of 88%; dandruff improvement % was +67% with a positive response of 88%; odour improvement % was +13% with a positive response of 50%; skin balance improvement % was +52% with a positive response of 88%. Improvement percentages were statistically evaluated with a t-test analysis (p=0.05). The results were statistically significant and no significant adverse reaction was observed during the test. Based on these findings, it was suggested that the spot-on formulation could have dermo-cosmetic effects.

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A male golden hamster, 25-month of age was presented to my clinic due to approximately 1-month history of alopecia and pruritus on the whole skin surfaces. Skin scraping revealed numerous mites identified as Demodex criceti and D. aurati. The hamster was injected with 40 to 60 μg/head of doramectin subcutaneously once a week for six weeks. The skin lesions were dramatically improved after the treatment, and no mites were detected by skin scrapings. The skin lesions were relapsed on the abdominal area at 28-month of age and D. criceti was identified, but the lesions were disappeared after injections of 60 μg/head of doramectin subcutaneously once a week for eight weeks, although mites were detected at eight weeks after treatment. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report to describe the treatment of demodicosis in hamster by doramectin.

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A 10-year-old, female Labrador Retriever had a well-circumscribed mass beneath the third nipple of right mammary gland. Histologically, the tumor was composed of multiple lobules and consisted of both neoplastic epithelial cells forming tubulo-acinar structures and myoepithelial cells arranged in solid nests. These neoplastic cells rarely showed nuclear atypia, mitotic activity without evidences of vascular invasion. However, multifocal metastatic foci were detected in the axillary lymph node. Therefore, the tumor was diagnosed as complex carcinoma of the mammary gland. In the present case, differential diagnosis between benign tumor (complex adenoma) and malignant one (complex carcinoma) was challenging on the basis of histopathological findings on routine hematoxylin and eosin-stained sections of the primary tumor. Therefore, we compared the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in the neoplastic cells between 3 complex carcinomas including the present case and 9 complex adenomas of canine mammary gland. The PCNA-positive rate among the neoplastic cells was significantly higher in complex carcinomas than in complex adenomas. These results indicate the importance of histopathological evaluation of the regional lymph nodes, and PCNA may be a useful parameter for the differential diagnosis in canine complex type mammary tumors.

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Multiple nodular skin lesions were found in a debilitated field sparrow. Histopathological examination on the cutaneous lesions revealed intense epidermal hyperplasia with acidophilic intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies in the ballooned keratinocytes, suggesting fowlpoxvirus (FPV) infection. Nested PCR specifically amplified a 419 bp DNA fragment of FPV 4b gene from the skin lesions, while it was not detected in other tissue samples such as liver, lung, kidney, trachea and neck. DNA sequencing of the second PCR product revealed 97.8% homology with the fragment of FPV 4b gene. These results indicate that the skin lesions were caused by infection with FPV.

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