Pattern of Fungal Dermatoses Investigations in Upth: A Five-Year Review

Background: Infectious dermatoses are rife in resource limited settings. Fungi skin infection constitutes the majority of infective skin conditions seen by physicians in primary, secondary, and tertiary health care centers, in Nigeria. Methods: A retrospective five-year review of the pattern of fungal dermatoses investigations among patients attending the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital between 2015 – 2020 was carried out. Results: There were five hundred and fifty-five (555) patients referred for fungal investigations over the five-year period. The data showed that most of the patients referred for fungal investigations were between 21 – 30 years (36.4%) and 31 – 40 years (18.2%) respectively. Most of the patients were observed to be female (57.1%). The bulk of the referrals originated from the dermatology/medical outpatient clinic (90.3%). About 45% (252/555) of the referrals was observed to have fungal growth. The most common fungi isolated was Aspergillus sp (41.67%) and Candida sp (35.3%) with Blastomyces spp and Fusarium spp being the least isolated fungi (0.4% each). Conclusion: The study showed that the pattern of dermatoses was not significantly associated with age or gender. Superficial fungi infections still need to be addressed as a public health problem among the growing populace of Nigeria. Similarly, there seem to be a relative increase in the prevalence of skin infections among elderly people in the period under review.