Onychomycosis in Eastern India - study in a peripheral tertiary care centre

Objective: to find out various clinical patterns, etiologic agents and to evaluate the clinicomycologic correlation. patients and methods: two hundred and forty nine cases of clinically suspected onychomycosis were included in this study. clinical patterns were noted and sample collected from most severely affected nail. they were subjected to direct microscopy and culture. results: distal and lateral subungual onychomycosis was the commonest clinical pattern (56.6%) followed by proximal subungual onychomycosis (15.7%), total dystrophic onychomycosis (12.1%), white superficial onychomycosis (10.8%) and chronic paronychia (4.8%). 126 cases (50.6%) were confirmed by either microscopy or culture whereas 123 cases (49.4%) were negative by both. dermatophytes were most common (55.9%) cause of onychomycosis. amongst them trichophyton rubrum was the most common isolate (65.9%). candida albicans was important (79.2%) amongst the yeast isolates. nondermatophytic moulds were involved in 15.5% of cases. conclusion: onychomycosis might be an important cause of absenteeism amongst the working classes in this part of india. yeasts and nondermatophytic moulds are gradually becoming an important cause of onychomycosis in different areas of the world. so, early diagnosis and initiation of antifungal treatment should be the approach to safeguard the social, emotional and physical well being of the patients.