The main factors influencing canine demodicosis treatment outcome and determination of optimal therapy

The main idea of this research was to evaluate the efficacy of canine demodicosis conventional treatments using mathematical analyses. All available papers published between 1980 and 2014 were used in this study. One hundred six clinical trials enrolling 3414 cases of generalized demodicosis in dogs are studied. Dogs entered in the analysis were only the ones in which the disease occurred naturally, excluding the studies in which transplantation of Demodex canis mites was done from other animals. In conventional acaricide treatments, sorted according to active substances (moxidectin, amitraz, doramectin, ivermectin, and milbemycin oxime), the way of application (spot-on, dips, orally, or subcutaneous), concentration, and interval of application were used as input parameters in mathematical modeling. Data of interest were the treatment outcome, the number of dogs that went into remission, the number of animals not responding to treatment microscopically, the average duration of therapy, the follow-up period, the number of patients with disease recurrence, the number of adverse effects, and the number of animals with side effects. Dogs lost to follow-up or when the treatment was discontinued, due to various reasons not in connection with the therapy protocol, were not considered. Statistical and mathematical analyses were applied for prediction of the drugs’ effectiveness. Developed mathematical models showed satisfactorily r ², higher than 0.87. Good evidence for recommending the use of milbemycin oxime PO (0.5 mg/kg, daily) and moxidectin spot-on (Advocate®, Bayer) weekly is found. A bit less effective therapies were based on ivermectin PO (0.5 mg/kg, daily), moxidectin PO (0.35 mg/kg, daily), and amitraz dips (0.05 % solution, weekly), respectively. It is important to keep in mind that Advocate® is recommended by the manufacturer for use in milder cases.