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Greetings and Happy New Year!
Happy Holiday Season!
Over the next few months you will be hearing a lot about the new drug from Zoetis for allergic dermatitis and atopic dermatitis. APOQUEL® (oclacitinib) is going to shake up how we approach canine pruritus in dogs over one-year of age, and that is not a bad thing, if you ask me. But, questions still remain as to how effective it is (see my blog post on the subject). Nonetheless, we are fortunate that Pfizer Animal Health/Zoetis invested the considerable time and money that it took to bring APOQUEL to market.
As RESPIT continues to grow, reaching over 700 hospitals now, we are spinning off a separate business entity (RESPIT, llc, dba SkinVet Products). You will notice the change on invoices in the coming weeks. Our contact information will remain the same and I am always happy to provide veterinarians with dermatology consultations.
--Jon Plant, DVM, Dipl. ACVD |
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Serum IgE reproducibility study receives top award at European Dermatology Congress
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It started out as a simple suggestion by Dr. Plant on a VIN message board: run multiple allergy tests on each patient to see how well they agree, or disagree. The powers that be at VIN took the post down saying that it was too "commercial." Not to be silenced, Dr. Plant worked with his statisticians and two other dermatologists (Valerie Fadok and Brian Scott) to design and complete a study that was selected for the "Best Clinical Research Short Communication Award" at the annual meeting of the European College of Veterinary Dermatology in Valencia, Spain.  The study, entitled "reproducibility of allergen-specific IgE assays and ensuing immunotherapy recommendations from four commercial laboratories", found that the agreement between four serum allergy tests, each performed on 10 atopic dogs, was only slightly better than could be expected by randomly assigning positive reactions. Similarly, the treatment recommendations provided by the four laboratories (Heska, IDEXX/Greer, VARL, and Biomedical Services) displayed poor agreement with one another. The full manuscript has now been accepted for publication in Veterinary Dermatology with the title "agreement between allergen-specific IgE assays and ensuing immunotherapy recommendations from four commercial laboratories" and should be available online in early 2014. |
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Veterinary Dermatology Research
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Background: Pruritus is the hallmark clinical sign of atopic dermatitis (AD) in dogs. Preliminary study results suggest that oclacitinib, a selective Janus kinase inhibitor, could reduce pruritus and associated inflammatory skin lesions in dogs with AD. Hypothesis/Objectives: The objective was to evaluate efficacy and safety of oclacitinib (Apoquel®) for the control of AD in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Animals: Clinicians at 18 specialty clinics enrolled client-owned dogs (n = 299) with a history of chronic AD. Methods: Dogs were randomized to receive either oclacitinib (0.4-0.6 mg/kg twice daily for 14 days and then once daily for up to 112 days) or an excipient-matched placebo. Owners assessed visual analog scale (VAS) scores of pruritus on days 0, 1, 2, 7, 14, 28, 56, 84 and 112. Clinicians assessed Canine AD Extent and Severity Index (CADESI-02) scores on days 0, 14, 28, 56, 84 and 112.
Results: On days 1, 2, 7, 14 and 28, oclacitinib-treated dogs had a 29.5, 42.3, 61.5, 66.7 and 47.4% reduction from baseline in owner-assessed pruritus scores, respectively, compared with a 6.5, 9.1, 6.5, 3.9 and 10.4% reduction in placebo-treated dogs. On days 14 and 28, dermatologists recorded a 48.4% reduction in CADESI-02 scores in oclacitinib-treated dogs compared with a 1.7% reduction and a 3.6% increase in placebo-treated dogs. After day 28, >86% of all placebo-treated dogs had moved to an open-label study, making between-group comparisons biased. Differences were significant at all time points assessed (P < 0.0001).
read more of this Open Acess article, avialable without subscription |
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Visit us at the NAVC in Orlando
| We will be in the Orlando  World Center Marriott, booth 4127, ready to answer your questions about RESPIT! |
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| SkinVet Clinic serves the dermatological needs of pets throughout Oregon and Washington. In the course of his practice, Dr. Plant developed RESPIT and has made it available to veterinarians across the US.
Jon Plant, DVM, DACVD
SkinVet Clinic, LLC 
15800 SW Upper Boones Ferry Rd. #120
Lake Oswego, OR 97035
www.skinvetclinic.com
www.vetrespit.com
503-352-3376
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not
be called research, would it?" -- Albert Einstein |
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