Increased circulating concentrations of PDGF-BB and TGF-β1 in canine generalised demodicosis

Canine generalised demodicosis is severe and inflammatory skin disease of dogs mostly caused by the mite Demodex canis and is clinically characterised by the severe itching, alopecia, crusting, follicular papules and pustules [8, 37]. The disease has been divided into two forms based on the extent of the affected body area; localised and generalised. In localised form, skin lesions are in one body area, in face or feet and prognosis is good. Generalized form is characterized by skin lesions spread over the whole body and have a poor prognosis [37]. Although the clinical findings are well defined, the pathogenesis of the generalised demodicosis is not fully known. Increasing evidence suggests that cellmediated immune responses play a key role in the disease development [4, 7, 11, 37]. As a result of the inflammatory events, the release of growth factors from cells such as T cells, platelets, macrophages, lymphocytes, fibroblasts and endothelial cells is stimulated [16, 21, 24, 30].