Detection of dermatophytes in healthy companion dogs and cats in eastern India

In recent times increasing occurrence of dermatophytosis, especially among the school children in eastern India was evidenced along with increased tendency of keeping companion animals such as dogs and cats. This study was undertaken to detect the occurrence of dermatophytes with antifungal susceptibility among the companion animals. A total of 1501 healthy companion animals comprising 1209 dogs and 292 cats belonged to individual owners in and around Kolkata (West Bengal, India) were examined for the evidence of dermatophytosis during 20112013. The collected sles were subjected to direct examination by standard KOH mount technique. The sles were inoculated into both Sabouraud dextrose agar (SDA) with 0.05% chlorhenicol and 0.5% cycloheximide and dermatophyte test medium (DTM). Each of the fungal isolate was identified based upon its colony characteristics and hyphal and conidial cells it produced. Antifungal susceptibility of the isolates was tested by broth micro dilution assay using fluconazole, ketoconazole, itraconazole, miconazole, griseofulvin and hotericinB antifungals. Among the 1209 sles from dogs and 292 sles from cats, 253 (20.93%) and 109 (37.33%) sles were positive for dermatophytes by direct examination. Three identified species of dermatophytes with predominant occurrence were Microsporum canis, Microsporum gypseum and Trichophyton mentagrophytes. Ketoconazole (0.060.5 μgm/ml), itraconazole (0.030.5 μgm/ml) and hotericinB (0.030.5 μgm/ml) showed lowest MIC values against M. canis, T. mentagrophytes and M. gypseum, respectively. This is the first systemic report of dermatophytes in healthy companion animals with large numbers of sles in India.