Melissa A Nashat, Rodolfo J Ricart Arbona, Elyn R Riedel, Olga Francino, Lluis Ferrer, Kerith R Luchins, Neil S Lipman
Demodex mites are microscopic, cigar-shaped, follicular mites often regarded as commensal microfauna in mammals. Although Demodex spp. can cause dermatologic disease in any immunocompromised mammal, they are rarely reported in laboratory mice. Recent identification of Demodex musculi in a colony of immunodeficient mice with dermatitis afforded us the opportunity to investigate the comparative sensitivity of 4 antemortem diagnostic techniques to detect D. musculi-superficial skin scrape (SSS), tape impression (TI), fur pluck (FP), and deep skin scrape (DSS)-which we performed on 4 anatomic sites (face, interscapular region [IS], caudal ventrum [CV], and caudal dorsum [CD]) in 46 mice...
March 1, 2018: Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science: JAALAS