ORAL ITRACONAZOLE TREATMENT IN TINEA INCOGNITO PATIENTS AT CAN THO DERMATOVENEROLOGY HOSPITAL, VIETNAM

Background: Superficial mycoses are fungal infections occurred in keratin tissues such as stratum corneum, hair, and nails. Tinea incognito (TI) is one of the clinical forms of superficial mycoses that has symptoms. In this study, there were 124/234 (50.4%) patients purchasing corticosteroids by themselves at drug stores whereas Betamethasone is considered as a most common component that is commonly used to treat skin conditions before they are diagnosed TI. There were about 50/234 (20.3%) patients visit the dermatology clinics and the diagnoses are variants including atopic dermatitis, contact dermatitis, versicolor pityriasis. This phenomenon causes great difficulty for doctors to make an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. Therefore, this study with the aim to provide more practical data of dermatophyte infection in clinic could bring great advantage for patients. Aims: to describe clinical features and outcomes of dermatophyte infection treated with oral itraconazole. Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study analyzed 246 patients with fungal skin infection at Hospital of Dermato-venereology. Results: The prevalence of fungal skin infections caused by corticosteroids was 95.1%. The most common types of clinical forms were tinea cruris (18.3%), tinea faciei (11.8%), tinea corporis (5.7%), tinea pedis (4.5%) and tinea manuum (4.5%). 36.2% of cases had more than two categories of skin lesions. The results of treatment with oral itraconazole after 2 weeks had 3.4% recovery, 55.3% decrease, 31.3% no response and 100% recovery after 4 weeks. Conclusions: 95.1% patients got tinea incognito with atypical clinical manifestations. The effectiveness of itraconazole was proved in treating the disease.