Abstract
Microsporum canis is a worldwide diffused zoophilic dermatophyte which causes clinical conditions often characterised by multifocal alopecia, scaling, and circular lesions in many animal species, including humans. A large variety of oral and topical antifungal protocols is available for treating M. canis infection. However, the efficacy of these drugs and treatment protocols is variable, with treatment failure up to 40% of patients possibly due to resistance phenomena. The lack of standardised reference methods for evaluating the antifungal susceptibility of M. canis represents a major hindrance in assessing microbiological resistance in unresponsive clinical cases. Therefore, data about conventional therapy against M. canis and the protocols employed to test the antifungal activity of the most commonly employed drugs (i.e., azoles, polyenes, allylamines, and griseofulvin) have been summarised herein. This article focuses on technical parameters used for antifungal susceptibility tests, their effects on the minimum inhibitory concentration value, as well as their clinical implications.
Highlights
Microsporum canis is a zoophilic dermatophyte, the causative agent of human and animal dermatophytosis worldwide [1,2]
The results of seven works concluded that TER was more effective for tinea capitis primarily caused by Trichophyton species, whereas GRI for that caused by Microsporum species [23]
A microbroth dilution method for testing antifungal susceptibility profile has been adopted as an amendment to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) M38-A since 2004 [37] and successively an intraand inter-laboratory multicentre study was conducted to establish that T. mentagrophytes, MRL1957, and T. rubrum, MRL666 might be used as quality control reference strains for the dermatophyte susceptibility standard [55]
Summary
Microsporum canis is a zoophilic dermatophyte, the causative agent of human and animal dermatophytosis worldwide [1,2]. M. canis infection has been associated with multifocal alopecia, scaling, and circular lesions [3] and with localised forms in humans, such as for tinea capitis, tinea corporis, tinea pedis, and onychomycosis [1]. The distribution of this fungus might vary considerably, depending on the geographical area and other epidemiological factors (i.e., age, sex, and season) [4,5,6,7]. Data about conventional therapy against M. canis and protocols employed to test the antifungal activity of azoles, polyenes, allylamines, and GRI have been reviewed and clinical implications discussed
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