One Year Follow-up Study of Nail Opacity in Tinea Unguium Treated by Itraconazol Pulse Therapy

Abstract

We conducted itraconazol pulse therapy for 104 cases of tinea unguium, and evaluated its clinical efficacy over a year to determine a proper timing of additional treatments for cases that were not improved by this therapy. Seventy out of 104 patients (67.3%) completed three cycles of itraconazol pulse therapy, and the time course of nail opacity in 17 patients was followed for one year from the beginning of the therapy. Nine of 17 (67.3%) patients showed remarkable improvements of the nail opacity, which became one or less at one year after the beginning of the therapy, but that in two (11.8%) patients did not show substantially improvements. When the ratio of nail opacity at sixth month were compared with those before the treatment, eight patients showed five or more decrease and six of them (75.0%) eventually became one or less at one year. On the other hand, nine patients showed less than five decrease at sixth month and only three of them (33.0%) achieved the improvement to one or less ratio of the opacity at one year time. Time course study of the nail opacity of patients with tinea unguium may be useful to predict the final effect of itraconazol pulse therapy in individual patients and the necessity of additional treatments before the end of one year observation.