Concurrent development of generalised demodicosis, dermatophytosis and meticillin‐resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius secondary to inappropriate treatment of atopic dermatitis in an adult dog

Abstract

A four-year-old female spayed mongrel dog was presented in May 2015 with a two-year history of poorly controlled atopic dermatitis (AD) and increased pruritus over the last few months. Current medications included Apoquel, prednisone, diphenhydramine and cephalexin. A deep skin scrape revealed Demodex canis and Demodex cornei and superficial cytology revealed coccoid bacteria. Aerobic skin culture revealed meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) and dermatophyte culture grew Microsporum canis. Therapy included discontinuation and taper of immunosuppressive medications, oral enrofloxacin and ivermectin and Malaseb shampoo. Complete resolution of demodicosis, dermatophytosis and MRSP was accomplished in four months. Long-term control of AD was established by using low-dose prednisone therapy with no relapse in infectious disease. This case illustrates the risk of development of multiple infectious diseases secondary to immunosuppression with multimodal drug therapy for treatment of AD, and it exemplifies the importance of performing in-house diagnostic testing.

Secondary or Concurrent Infections in Skin of Atopic Dogs

“…Later this case responded to treatment for atopy. Agreeing with results of the study, demodicosis was also noticed in atopic dogs by Lockwood et al (2017).…”

Epidemiological, clinical and laboratory profile of dermatopathies of household dogs and cats in a semi-arid region of Northeast Brazil

“…The association of pathogens in dermatological conditions is usually related to more severe cases, and is considered by some authors as rare, since they are little described in the literature (Matos et al, 2012). In one case there was an association between M. gypseum, D. canis, S. simulans and K. pneumoniae, thus representing a fungal, parasitic and bacterial infection, similar to a report available in the literature (Lockwood et al, 2017), which demonstrated the importance of the basic diagnosis associated with prudent therapy as a prophylactic form of more serious cases such as the one described. Interestingly, in half of the cases in which the association between pathogens was observed, there was the use of drug therapy without veterinary guidance, which may probably have influenced the complication of the animal's clinical condition.…”