Epidemiological Investigation of Onychomycosis and Tinea Pedis in Children

소아의 손·발톱 및 족부백선증에 관한 역학적 조사

The number of children patients with tinea pedis and onychomycosis diagnosed on clinical findings and culture at the Catholic Dermatological Clinic in Daegu City were 144,446 for 2 years from January 2005 to December 2006. 120 children were suspected of having clinical onychomycosis or tinea pedis. KOH smears and cultures on the Potato corn meal dextrose agars (PDCA) were done for the suspected toe webs, nails and uninvolved neighbor toe webs. Socks were dusted and cultured to check contamination of clothes. Family infections were checked by questionnaire. The incidence was 92 (0.06%) out of 144,446 outpatients in tinea pedis, 28 (0.02%) in onychomycosis. Trichophyton(T.) rubrums were isolated from all of the 7 cases of onychomycosis. T. mentagrophytes was isolated from 5 cases of the tinea pedis patients and T. rubrum was isolated from 50 (92.5%) cases of the tinea pedis. The right side was predominant for onychomycosis of both toe nails (23 of 25) and finger nails (3 of 3). No fungal elements were detected from normal looking neighbor toe webs by KOH examinations. However, culture on PDCA agars showed T. rubrum isolates from 3 toe webs. 7 showed positive cultures from the socks. From the questionnaire, 94 had family infections.