What Are the Causes of a Skin Fungus?

Fungal dermatosis refers to superficial infectious diseases of human skin, mucous membranes, and hair and nail skin appendages caused by fungi. The clinical manifestations are mostly blister scales. The common characteristics of this type of disease are: high incidence, infectious, easy to relapse or re-infection.

Basic Information

Visiting department: dermatology
Common causes: Dermatophyte infections

Common symptoms: Blister scale-like manifestations, with damage mostly confined to one side
Contagious: Contagious

Causes of fungal skin diseases

The main pathogens of fungal skin diseases are dermatophytes, including Trichophyton, Trichophyton, Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton gypsum, Trichophyton verrucosa, and Microsporum. Fungi like warm and humid environments. When human skin has conditions suitable for fungal growth and reproduction, ringworm is prone to occur. If some people sweat easily, and do not clean and keep dry in time, they are susceptible to fungus and tinea versicolor. Often wear leather shoes and sports shoes. Poor local breathability leads to increased foot humidity and temperature. If you don't pay attention to foot cleanliness, athlete's foot will easily occur.

Clinical manifestations of fungal skin diseases

The clinical manifestations are blister-like scales, and the damage is mostly confined to one side. The first small blisters, the desquamation after the vesicles dry up, the range continues to expand, the skin is thickened and thickened, the skin is widened, and the normal luster is lost. It has a rough feel. Common fungal skin diseases include tinea capitis, tinea pedis, jock itch, and tinea versicolor.
1. Tinea capitis Tinea capitis is an infection of the scalp, hair, and hair follicles caused by dermatophytes, which can be divided into yellow ringworm, white ringworm, and black ringworm. Yellow ringworm is commonly known as "bald sore" and "hoe head". The skin lesions are characterized by a dish-shaped yellow ringworm rash with rat odor, which is easy to form permanent hair loss. The skin lesions of tinea corporis are round or irregular gray scale scales. The roots of the diseased hair are surrounded by white fungal sheaths, which are easy to break. Tinea verrucosa shows punctate scaly scaly patches on the scalp, slightly itchy; some patients may have focal permanent hair loss.
2. Tinea pedis, tinea corporis, tinea corporis tinea pedis manifests as redness, swelling, and pain caused by scaling, itching, erosion, and secondary bacterial infection of the skin between the toes and palms. Jock itch is usually caused by tinea pedis or tinea pedis, and the skin lesions are mostly irregular or curved, with lichenification or acute and subacute eczema-like changes, and are prone to bacterial infections. The tinea rash initially appears as erythema or pimples, and then spreads into a ring shape around it. Some new rashes continue to spread outward to form concentric rings. Itching sensation can be accompanied by bacterial infection.
3 Other fungal skin diseases have other manifestations in addition to the above manifestations. For example, the fungal skin disease that occurs in the nail is commonly called "onychomycosis", which is manifested as abnormal color and morphology of the nail. Eczema-like ringworm fungus rash is characterized by scattered or clustered deep blisters on the palm surface and the abdomen of the fingers. The blister wall is not easy to break, and the patient feels itchy and unbearable. Sweating in summer, ringworm caused by ringworm, also known as "sweat spots", is a skin rash with traces of bran-like scales on the surface. However, some scholars believe that tinea versicolor does not belong to the category of fungi.

Fungal skin disease test

1. Fungal microscopy Select the scales or disease on the edge of the lesion, place them on a glass slide, add potassium hydroxide solution, cover the glass slide, and heat on an alcohol lamp for a while for microscopic observation. Positive test results can be used as a basis for confirming the diagnosis; negative tests do not rule out the possibility of ringworm.
2. Fungal culture: Scales, hair or vesicles are taken from the lesions for inoculation and cultivation. Colonies grow in about 5 days, and the species can be identified; if the colonies grow, the culture is negative.
3 Wood lamp inspection fungi can produce colored fluorescence under the irradiation of filtered ultraviolet light, which provides an important reference for clinical diagnosis of superficial mycosis, especially for tinea capitis.

Diagnosis of fungal skin diseases

According to the history, clinical manifestations of blister scales, initial small blister, desquamation after the blister fluid has dried up, and rough skin thickening at the desquamation site can be diagnosed. If necessary, a fungal microscopy, fungal culture, or Woodlamp examination can be performed.

Differential diagnosis of fungal skin diseases

This type of disease needs to be distinguished from seborrheic dermatitis, psoriasis, sweat herpes, chronic eczema, palmoplantar pustulosis, and so on.

Fungal Dermatology Treatment

1. For systemic treatment, broad-spectrum antifungal imidazoles can be used, including ketoconazole and itraconazole.
2. For topical treatment of superficial mycosis that does not involve hair or deck, a broad-spectrum antifungal agent with weak specificity can be selected for external treatment, such as creams made of miconazole, econazole, leufurazole and the like. Tinea versicolor patients can obtain satisfactory results with imidazole creams.
3 Other patients with tinea versicolor can also be applied topically with a sodium thiosulfate solution. Patients with eczema-like ringworm can be treated according to the principle of treatment of allergic skin diseases. Antifungal drugs are not required for local application, especially those with strong irritation For ringworm medicine, use a mild zinc oxide oil or boric acid water for a wet compress.

Prevention of fungal skin diseases

1. Strengthen health education.
2. Pay attention to personal hygiene and keep your skin clean and dry.
3 When family members or pets have ringworm, they should be actively treated to disinfect contaminated clothing.
4 Tinea patients are prone to ringworm, and skin protection should be strengthened.