Understanding Fungal Infection Diagnosis
Learn how to establish or confirm a fungal infection diagnosis through microscopy and culture of skin, hair, and nail tissue. Find out how Wood lamp and various microscopy techniques help identify fungal infections, such as tinea capitis. Discover the components used to detect dermatophytes and why negative results don't always rule out fungal infection.
Download Presentation
Please find below an Image/Link to download the presentation.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author. If you encounter any issues during the download, it is possible that the publisher has removed the file from their server.
You are allowed to download the files provided on this website for personal or commercial use, subject to the condition that they are used lawfully. All files are the property of their respective owners.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author.
E N D
Presentation Transcript
Fungal infection To establish or confirm the diagnosis of a fungal infection, skin, hair and nail tissue is collected for microscopy and culture (mycology). Exposing the site to long-wavelength ultraviolet radiation (Wood lamp) can help identify some fungal infections of hair (tinea capitis) because the infected hair fluoresces green.
Direct microscopy of skin scrapings and nail clippings The material is examined by microscopy by one or more of these methods: Potassium hydroxide (KOH) preparation, stained with blue or black ink Fluorescent staining Unstained wet-mount Stained dried smear Histopathology of biopsy with special stains, eg, periodic acid-Schiff (PAS). Microscopy can identify a dermatophyte by the presence of: Fungal hyphae (branched filaments) making up a mycelium Arthrospores (broken-off spores) Arthroconidia (specialised external spores) Spores inside a hair (endothrix) or outside a hair (ectothrix). Fungal elements are sometimes difficult to find, especially if the tissue is very inflamed, so a negative result does not rule out fungal infection.
