Reliability of using Wood's lamp by shelter personnel to diagnose Microsporum canis in cats.

Abstract

Optimising diagnostic methods inshelters sothat they are aseconomical aspossible for the shelter isespecially important because shelters often have asignificant lack offunds and sousually donot carry out preventive screening ofcats. Dermatophyte fungi spread quickly and can infect shelter staff. The aim ofour work was toidentify the occurrence ofMicrosporum canis inshelter cats. Itaimed todetermine the prevalence ofM.canis incats atthe selected shelter and compare the efficiency ofdetection using aWood's lamp and culturing onSabouraud's agar. All cats present inthe shelter atthe time ofthe study (n=70) were examined with Wood's lamp and hair sampling followed bysubsequent culturing onSabouraud's agar. Identification offungi was based onmicroscopic proof ofmacroconidia and microconidia. The prevalence ofM.canis bydiagnosis onSabouraud's agar was 64.29% ofcats, with the help ofWood's lamp 48.57% ofcats showed positive fluorescence. The sensitivity ofthe Wood lamp examination was 71% and the specificity was 92%. Our study suggests that Wood's lamp could beused bytrained shelter personnel for the first examination ofcats atreception and could significantly reduce the risk ofspreading M.canis inshelters.