Titeux Emmanuelle, Gilbert Caroline, Briand Amaury, Cochet-Faivre Noëlle
Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d'Alfort, Unité Ethologie, Maisons-Alfort, France.
UMR 7179, CNRS/MNHN, laboratoire MECADEV, Brunoy, France.
Front Vet Sci. 2018 Apr 16;5:81. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2018.00081. eCollection 2018.
Feline idiopathic head-and-neck dermatitis-also named feline idiopathic ulcerative dermatitis (IUD)-is considered as a rare skin disease of unknown origin. It is usually associated with a crusted, non-healing, self-induced ulcer occurring most commonly on the dorsal or lateral neck or between the scapula where self-grooming by scratching occurs. Usually, IUD is diagnosed after exclusion of other causes of pruritus. In feline medicine, self-induced alopecia is recognized as a behavioral disorder (abnormal repetitive behavior) due to excessive licking, which is an amplification of a normal maintenance behavior. Such repetitive behaviors, like self-induced alopecia or self-induced wounds, are named stereotypies and considered as indicators of poor welfare. The objectives of our study were to determine, first, if the repetitive behavior associated with self-induced wounds was related to a poor welfare, and, second, if improving the welfare in the cat's environment would lead to healing, thanks to environmental enrichment. We recruited 13 cats diagnosed with IUD by a dermatologist. These cats were referred to a behaviorist for welfare evaluation. A welfare score was attributed using a new 21-point welfare scale. The median score of the 13 IUD cats was 16, while the median score of 35 healthy cats was 7 (significant difference, < 0.001). Major modifications of the cat's environment and the human-cat relationship were then recommended for IUD cats. Within 15 days after environment modifications, ulcerative lesions were healed and welfare scores improved significantly (median score of 6, significantly different from the score before environmental modifications), being similar to healthy cats (no significant differences). Only one cat was treated with a psychotropic drug, owners being reluctant to improve environmental modifications. These results suggest that feline IUD is a behavioral disorder indicative of poor welfare and that it requires management by behavior specialists, proposing environmental modifications. We hence propose to rename this affection to "behavioral ulcerative dermatitis," given that welfare scores were significantly different from healthy cats, and that environmental modifications modified welfare scores and lead to successful healing in all cases.
猫特发性头颈部皮炎——也称为猫特发性溃疡性皮炎（IUD）——被认为是一种病因不明的罕见皮肤病。它通常与结痂、不愈合、自我诱发的溃疡有关，最常见于背部或颈部侧面或肩胛骨之间，此处会因抓挠而出现自我梳理行为。通常，IUD是在排除其他瘙痒原因后才得以诊断。在猫医学中，自我诱发的脱毛被认为是一种行为障碍（异常重复行为），是由于过度舔舐引起的，而过度舔舐是正常维持行为的一种强化。这种重复行为，如自我诱发的脱毛或自我诱发的伤口，被称为刻板行为，并被视为福利不佳的指标。我们研究的目的，首先是确定与自我诱发伤口相关的重复行为是否与福利不佳有关，其次是确定改善猫的生活环境中的福利是否会通过环境丰富化而导致伤口愈合。我们招募了13只经皮肤科医生诊断患有IUD的猫。这些猫被转介给行为学家进行福利评估。使用一种新的21分福利量表给出福利评分。13只IUD猫的中位评分为16分，而35只健康猫的中位评分为7分（差异显著，<0.001）。然后为IUD猫推荐了对猫的生活环境和人猫关系的重大调整。在环境调整后的15天内，溃疡性病变愈合，福利评分显著提高（中位评分为6分，与环境调整前的评分有显著差异），与健康猫相似（无显著差异）。只有一只猫接受了精神药物治疗，因为主人不愿改善环境调整。这些结果表明，猫IUD是一种表明福利不佳的行为障碍，需要行为专家进行管理，并提出环境调整建议。因此，我们建议将这种疾病重新命名为“行为性溃疡性皮炎”，因为福利评分与健康猫有显著差异，而且环境调整改变了福利评分并在所有病例中都导致了成功愈合。
