Table 1.

Flea counts on naturally infested cats in households in Florida before and after treatment with either a single topical dose of fluralaner or three consecutive monthly doses of selamectin

Treatment group	No. of cats on day 0		Days post-treatment
			0	7	14	21	28–30	40-45	56-60	82-86
Fluralaner1	31	Geomean flea count3	11.4a,x	0.4b,y	0.3b,y	0.1b,y	0.2b,y	0.1b,y	0.1b,y	0.0b,y
		Range	(5–63)	(0–4)	(0–4)	(0–3)	(0–2)	(0–2)	(0–3)	(0–0)
		% control4		96.6	97.3	99.3	98.5	99.5	99.2	100
		% (#) cats with no fleas	0.0a,x (0/31)	69.0b,y (20/29)	71.0b,y (22/31)	93.5b,y (29/31)	80.6b,y (25/31)	93.5b,y (29/31)	90.3b,y (28/31)	100b,y (31/31)
Selamectin2	29	Geomean flea count3	12.7a,x	2.6a,y	3.2a,y	3.6a,y	2.8a,y	0.8a,y	1.1a,y	1.1a,y
		Range	(5–44)	(0–23)	(0–29)	(0–50)	(0–35)	(0–14)	(0–11)	(0–8)
		% control4		79.4	74.6	71.3	77.8	93.8	91.0	91.3
		% (#) cats with no fleas	0.0a,x (0/29)	24.1a,y (7/29)	28.6a,y (8/28)	17.2a,x (5/29)	17.2a,x (5/29)	37.0a,y (10/27)	44.4a,y (12/27)	38.5a,y (10/26)

¹In the fluralaner group cats were treated once topically on day 0 (Bravecto® Topical solution; Merck Animal Health, Madison, NJ, USA)

²In the selamectin group cats were treated on day 0 and once between days 28–30 and 56–60 (Revolution®; Zoetis, Whippany, NJ, USA)

³Geometric mean numbers of fleas in comb counts

⁴{(Day 0 geometric mean animal area flea counts – day x geometric mean animal area flea counts) / day 0 geometric mean animal area flea counts)} × 100

^a,bGeometric mean flea counts in a column with unlike letter superscripts are significantly different (P < 0.001; │t│≥ 3.70)

^x,yGeometric mean flea counts in a row with unlike letter superscripts are significantly different from day 0 (P < 0.001; │t│≥ 7.14)

^a,bPercent of flea-free cats in a column with unlike letter superscripts are significantly different (P < 0.002; Fisher’s exact test)

^x,yPercent of flea- free cats in a row with unlike letter superscripts are significantly different from day 0 (P < 0.01; Fisher’s exact test)