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Isolation, Identification and Speciation of Dermatophyte Infection in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: The common fungal infections seen in human are Dermatophytoses. They are capable to invade keratinized tissues. Mainly affect the skin, hair and nail, therefore, called as keratinophilic fungi. Dermatophytes falls under three Genus known as Trichophyton, Epidermophyton and Microsporum collectively called as dermatophytes. Unlike bacteria fungi are multicellular and are having different and specific morphology. They can be grown in the artificial media at room temperature and in human body temperature Objective: Isolation and identification of fungi will help to select the appropriate antifungal management of dermatophyte infection. Methodology: For isolation identification and speciation of dermatophytes the clinical specimens should be collected from skin, nail and hair which are obtained from patients attending the Dermatology department. Over a period of one and half year. A total no of 180 samples are collected from the patients. Samples are examined under direct microscopy in 10%, and 40% KOH. The morphology of the fungal hyphae is studied. Samples are also inoculated onto SDA and incubated at 25C and 37C for14 days. The colony characteristics and microscopic morphology in LPCB preparations are also examined. Based on the results the fungiare identified. Further speciation was carried out by using hair perforation test and Urease test. Results: All the 180 clinically suspected specimen of dermatophytes when examined results showed that most of the cases are seen between the age group of 21and 30 years. The predominant isolates belong to the genus Trichophyton (96.70%). Among the Trichophyton species mentagrophytes is the most common isolate (58.24%) T. rubrum is the next important species isolated. Conclusion: Early identification of the dermatophytes and timely given therapy will be of greater value in the prevention of fungal infection.