A 5-year retrospective study on onychomycosis and its causative organisms in University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC)
- Author:
Lau SL
;
Wong SM
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- Keywords:
Onychomycosis, causative organism
- From:Malaysian Journal of Dermatology
2009;23(-):11-15
- CountryMalaysia
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Introduction Onychomyosis is a common infection of the nails, caused by dermatophytes, nondermatophyte
moulds or yeasts. There are four main types of onychomycosis which include lateral
and distal onychomycosis, proximal onychomycosis, superficial white and total dystrophic
onychomycosis. We performed a retrospective analysis looking into the recent trends of
onychomycosis in a University Hospital in Malaysia.
Materials and methods Data was collected from all patients who had their nail clippings cultured
for fungal infection from January 2004 to December 2008, and were analysed.
Results There were 272 nail specimens in total. The majority of specimens were from adults
(65.8%), followed by the elderly (23.9%) and children and adolescents made up 10.3%. The mean
age of the study population was 49.9 ± 19SD years. Of the 189 specimens with positive fungal
culture, 110 (40.4%) were non-dermatophyte moulds, followed by yeasts predominantly Candida
species (17.6%), 3 (1.1%) were dermatophytes, and 28 (10.3%) were a mixed infection of
dermatophytes, non-dermatophyte moulds and yeasts.
Conclusion From this study, it was found that onychomycosis in our hospital from 2004 to 2008
were mainly caused by non-dermatophyte moulds. Treatment may be challenging as nondermatophyte
onychomycosis are more resistant to treatment.
