Efficacy and safety of selamectin against fleas and heartworms in dogs and cats presented as veterinary patients in North America

Efficacy of selamectin in the treatment and control of clinical signs of flea allergy dermatitis in dogs and cats experimentally infested with fleas

“…This finding supports the concepts that treatment and control of FAD can be achieved without total elimination of the flea burden and that keeping the flea salivary antigen challenge below threshold levels is important in controlling signs of FAD. e Results of the present study confirm findings from a previous study 11 in which selamectin reduced the severity of signs associated with FAD in veterinary patients. However, improvements may also, in part, have been associated with a reduction in the number of flea bites, as reduced feeding of parasites has been observed for avermectins in general, 18,19 and reduced feeding has been observed for fleas on cats that were treated with selamectin.…”

“…5 For particularly sensitive animals, this may require elimination of the flea population, but substantial clinical improvements have been observed in some animals with signs of FAD even when fleas have not been completely eliminated. 11 However, the effects on FAD in the previous study were secondary observations in dogs and cats in which FAD was not well characterized. In addition, the ideal agent would be effective against immature flea stages in the environment to eliminate the ongoing flea challenge.…”

Evaluation of hair loss in cats occurring after treatment with a topical flea control product

“…The clinical presentation and time course of hair thinning and loss in cats in this laboratory study correlates well with a set of clinical studies in dogs and cats performed with topical selamectin . The authors of the selamectin studies noted that they suspected excessive self‐grooming to be the cause of the hair coat changes in cats.…”

“…In cats, the use of topically applied products has become the major mode of treatment. The most commonly recognized adverse effects of topically active products in cats are local reactions, including transient erythema and hair thinning or loss . Few of these reactions have been studied or biopsied.…”

Heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) connects the FACT histone chaperone complex to the phosphorylated CTD of RNA polymerase II

“…As this modification is found mostly in silenced chromatin, HP1 has been considered a hallmark of repression. The CSD is required for HP1 dimerization and interaction with many proteins that possess a conserved pentapeptide motif, PXVXL (Boy et al 2000;Brasher et al 2000). Most eukaryotes contain several HP1 proteins that may fulfill slightly different functions.…”