The doctor will do a skin scrapping and examine it under the microscope. The presence of mites in the scrapping confirms the diagnosis. This disease can be treated, but the patient may have an underlying problem for which there is no practical treatment or cure. Heavy infections may cause weight loss. Lighter infections usually go undetected unless pieces of the worms pass out of the hamster's anus or appear in the feces.
People can become infected with the same organism.
This underscores the importance of restricting access to hamsters and their enclosures by very young children. All such encounters should be carefully monitored. Hamster owners suspicious of this parasite problem should submit a fecal sample to a veterinarian for analysis. Treatment can be instituted by the veterinarian. Pinworms are a less common intestinal parasitism of hamsters.