ABSTRACT
Aim: to study chronic paronychia
Patients And Methods: one hundred Patients including 96 females and 4 males with chronic paronychia [CP] were included in this study, with an effort to determine the occurrence of CP among Iraqi population, and the role of microorganisms in the aetiology of the disease in both sexes
Results: the study revealed that the peak age range of patients with CP [50-59 years] generally was greater than other age ranges. Forty-five percent of the female patients with CP were "housewives." Chronic paronychia was more common on the right fingers than the left fingers. The most commonly affected fingers were the middle and index fingers. Seventy-six patients from the total 100 who nail fold smears showed positive findings for budding yeast cells, suggestive of candidal infection. The rest twenty-four patients had negative fungal culture results [just bacterial]
Conclusions: chronic paronychia can occur in all ages and both sexes but more likely in middle aged women , persistent exposure to wet environment associated with high risk of infection, particularly in housewives , chronic paronychia affects the most used hand [MUH] more often than the least used hand [LUH] , particularly the right middle finger, the number of affected fingers increases as the duration of the disease increase , chronic paronychia caused by Candida albicans [yeast-like-fungus ] and their occurrence increases with diabetes mellitus and corticosteroids therapy , bacterial infections are common in our chronic paronychia patients, particulary S.epidermidis and S. aureus