Presence of keratinophilic fungi with special reference to dermatophytes on the haircoat of dogs and cats in México and Nezahualcoyotl cities.

In order to study the presence of keratinophilic fungi with special reference to dermatophytes on the coat of dogs and cats living in the cities of Mexico and Nezahualcoyotl in the Metropolitan area of Mexico City, two hundred samples were collected from dogs and one hundred from cats by using the MacKenzie's tooth brush technique, they were processed by routine mycological methods for dermatophyte fungi, results were analyzed by means of the statistical packages SAS. There were isolated 67 and 90 keratinophilic strains from cats and dogs samples, respectively. The most commonly fungi isolated in pure culture in this study were Chrysosporium spp (25%), followed by Trichophyton terrestre (22%), Microsporum gypseum (5%), M. canis (4%), as well as mixed cultures like Chrysosporium spp. & M. gypseum (2%) and T. terrestre & T. mentagrophytes (1%). Keratinophilic fungi were found in higher numbers in the cat haircoat (67%) than in the dog's (45%) and the same was true with regard to dermatophytes with 12 isolates out of a 100 samples in cats and 7 Isolates out of 200 samples from dogs. This may represent a health risk for humans in contact with a dermatophyte infected cat or dog.