Abstract
We report eight cases of tinea corporis due to Trichophyton tonsurans with fungal parasitism of the hair sampled from patients' skin rashes. The patients were junior and senior high school students with ages varying between 14 and 16 years old. The male : female ratio was 6 : 2. We sampled the hair from the patients' eruptions at the first examination and screened them for parasitic fungi. Endothrix as well as hair root-parasitic fungi were found in the culture from five patients who had previously received treatment with topical antifungal medication before our first examination. This finding implies that topical antifungal medication must be combined with oral agents in order to eradicate the fungi completely. Monotherapy with topical drugs can alleviate the skin rash, but we cannot exclude the possibility that the surviving fungi could transform the patient into a carrier, which could lead to relapse and spreading of the infection. Therefore, we conclude that, upon diagnosis of tinea corporis, sampling of the lesion site hair and KOH microscopic examination should also be performed, in addition to the usual scale inspection.
