Clinical Case 4 - Page 2

Courtesy of C. Antonczyk

A skin scrape was performed.

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Why would you take a skin scrape?

Skin scrapes are performed to look for ectoparasites in the superficial layers of the skin, usually mites.

How do you perform a skin scrape?

First, find an area to take a sample from. The author finds that the best areas to scrape are those that are obviously affected (especially raised, erythematous areas), but that are not covered with excessive crust. Although these may contain more mites, scrapes from very crusty lesions are often difficult to examine under the microscope.

Once an area is selected, apply a small amount of liquid paraffin. Then, stabilise the skin by streching it between thumb and finger and, using a size ten blade, gently scrape the surface of the skin with your other hand.

If you are looking for burrowing mites, you will need to take a deep skin scrape, which means scraping until you can see capillary ooze (tiny amounts of blood become visible on the skin). The material that you have scraped off the surface can then be spread on a slide for viewing under the microscope.

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