Alopecia hamster..what next?

RE: Alopecia hamster..what next?

alison silvester — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 11:48:03 GMT

Thank you. She is sure of age and I think although the pyoderma improved on antibiotics the hair loss continued to progress. I think her owner would be keen to go ahead with skin scrapes and biopsy etc but I am not sure I am brave enough to blood sample!

Thanks for the information!

Alison

RE: Alopecia hamster..what next?

Marie Kubiak — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 11:14:08 GMT

Hi,

not an uncommon problem in Syrian hamsters but lots of possible causes!

Main differentials here are:

Geriatric coat thinning: is the owner confident of their records and that the patient is only 1 yr old?

Contact irritation: any change in bedding materials or cleaning treatments?

Demodex: deep scrapes (or biopsy) needed to identify mites, or consider a treatment trial of 0.3mg/kg ivermectin daily for 21 days (interestingly 25/mg/kg fluralaner as a one off has been reported to be successful in one case report so may be a simpler option but with less of an evidence base).

Bacterial dermatitis: incomplete resolution of the more chronic diffuse changes after treatment of facial dermatitis is possible, did the overall skin and coat condition change while on antibiotics?

Cutaneous lymphoma typically has more striking changes to the skin but early stages can present as coat thinning so a biopsy is s consideration if changes progress

Dermatophytosis is less common in hamsters but easily assessed with a hair pluck fungal culture

Cushings is uncommon in female Syrian hamsters

Hypothyroidism has been reported and prevalence is not really known

Given the range of causes, I tend to recommend GA and skin scrapes for mites, hair pluck for dermatophyte culture and collect a skin biopsy for histopath. If they wish to investigate fully, a cranial vena cava blood draw to get a sample for T4 and ALP will help assess for thyroid/adrenal involvement too. Check with your lab first how much they need though! Mine is great and can run both on 0.25ml and add in biochem with 0.5ml but not all are used to tiny samples.

Marie

RE: Alopecia hamster..what next?

Andreas Ege — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 22:06:38 GMT

Many reasons. ;-) Any other hamsters in household, maybe same cage/ viv? If so, do they show symptoms? Parasites - yes. I'd think if history doesn't point to something else worth trying xeno. Not sure about skin scrapings - negative not diagnostic in dog, don't know where hamsters stand. Protein deficiency, think read something about Vit B deficiency, behaviour (rubbing), barbering (can obviously rule out if kept on it's own), worst case lymphoma. Would think biopsy only worth if thinking lymphoma. But what do you do then?

Really old rats seem to sometimes get thin coat/ bald just due ageing processes, would assume same might apply to hamsters. Don't think old enough, though.

I personally, i.e. if it were mine and assuming didn't notice any behavioural issue like rubbing, would double check nutrition, apply xeno (especially if rubbing ;-) ) and keep my fingers crossed.