The incidence of causative pathogens responsible from the dermatopyte infections in our region, Erzurum

The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of causative pathogens responsible from the dermatophyte infections in our region, Erzurum. In the study, 548 hair, nail, and skin samples from 503 patients who have been prediagnosed as dermatophytic infection at Dermatology Department of Atatürk University were studied. With these samples, native preparations were done by using %20 KOH and then these slides were dyed by lactofenol cotton blue for direct microscopic examination. In order to isolate and identify the dermatophytes, each sample was inoculated duplicate on saboraud dextrose agar, mycobiotic dextrose agar and potato dextrose agar and incubated for up to 4 weeks at 37° C and room temperature. At the end of the incubation period, cultures were examined macroscopically and microscopically. In identifying the isolated strains, following characteristics were noticed: Growth period, colony morphology, production of pigment on the reverse of colony, characteristic hyphae formation, types of micro and macroconidia and urease activity. According to the age distribution, the most of the patients (338 patient, 67.2%) were in the 20-49 age group. As for the sex distribution, male patients (336,66.4 %) were more than females (169 patient, 33.6 %).. The diagnosis of patients as dematophytosis was made according to the clinical and laboratory findings. The distribution was as follows; 28.0 % Tinea pedis, 24.1 % Tinea corporis, 15.5 % Tinea ungium, 14.5 % Tinea ingiunalis, 13.9 % Tinae manum and 4.0 % Tinea capitis. Of 138 cases from which dermatophytes were isolated, distribution of causative agents were as follows; 72.5 % Trichophyton rubrum, 16.8 % Trichophyton mentagrophytes, 3.6 % Trichophyton schoenleinii, 1.4 % Trichophyton tonsurans, 1.4% Microsporum canis and 0.7 % Epidermophyton floccosum. T. schoenleinii was the most frequent dermatophyte (45.4 %) in Tinea capitis, whereas Trichophyton rubrum was the most frequent one in other dermatophyte infections. In conclusion, we found that tinea pedis was the most frequently clinical form, and trichophyton rubrum was the most frequently dermatophyte as a causative agent responsible from dermatophytosis in Erzurum. Our findings were generally similar to the other studies, so the geographical differences, contrarily to the expected, were not effective in the epidemiology of these infections.