The difficulty of diagnosis and therapy of chronic thallium intoxication is
described in five German Pointers with the same skin disease.
The detection of thallium in cases of skin lesions like the cutaneous eryth
ema with oedema and crusts or in chronic cases with multifocal alopecia is
difficult. The first diagnostic information was gathered in this case from
the high thallium level in the urine. The thallium concentration in the hai
r is subject to great variations, even in physiologic conditions. The trich
ogramme showed in this case pathognomonic changes like adhesion of the hair
follicles.
Differential diagnosis for this symmetric alopezia without pruritus are hor
monal disturbances or, in puppies, the generalized form of demodicosis.
The five affected dogs were treated with Fe III-Hexacyano-ferrat. The clini
cal appearance of the skin improved slowly during a period of 1-2 months.