Tinea Capitis in Eastern Taiwan: An Analysis of 28 Cases
摘要
We diagnosed 28 cases of culture-proven tinea capitis in eastern Taiwan between July 1991 and February 2001. The patients included 11 children and 17 adults, from 1 to 79 years old. There were 25 females and 3 males. All the 3 male patients were boys. The median age was 5 years for children and 61 years for adults. Microsporum canis was the most common isolated dermatophyte (9 cases), followed by Trichophyton violaceum (8 cases), Trichophyton tonsurans (5 cases), Trichophyton rubrum (4 cases) and Trichophyton mentagrophytes (2 cases). Eight of the 11 children were infected by M. canis from cats. Anthropophilic dermatophytes were main causative agents of 17 adult patients, all were women and majority (88%) of them were above 50 years old. This bimodal distribution of patients and causative fungi, also reported in southern and northern Taiwan, represents a new trend of tinea capitis in the past 2 decades.