The Epidemiologic Study on Epidermophyton floccosum(1976-1997) / 대한의진균학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: E. floccosum was known to be the frequent dermatophyte of tinea cruris and fourth causative agent of dermatophytosis in Korea. However, its incidence has been decreasing. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate epidemiologic aspects of E. floccosum. METHOD: We performed the epidemiologic study on 900 patients with E. floccosum infections in from January 1976 to December 1997. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The incidence of dermatophytosis was 16.5% out of a total of 614,139 outpatients, and that of E. floccosum was 0.9% out of a total of 101, 314 dermatophytosis. Among the age groups, the incidence rate was high in the first decade (29.4%) and second decade (41.7%). The ratio of male to female patients was 6.61. The prevalence of the month was high in the August, September and October. Involved sites were groin (85.8%), foot (6.2%), trunk (3.7%), hand (1.3%), leg (1.0%), toenail (0.8%), face (0.7%) and arm (0.6%) in decreasing order of frequency. We found that the incidence of E. floccosum had been markedly decreasing since 1986.