Immune responses of patients with tinea imbricata

Abstract

Tinea imbricata is a chronic dermatophyte infection caused by Trichophyton concentricum affecting large areas of the skin surface. Spontaneous improvement is unusual and relapse after apparently successful treatment is common. In this study in Papua New Guinea it was found that a high proportion of infected patients had immediate-type hypersensitivity (52%) or negative responses (46%) to intradermal trichophytin. The majority of patients failed to develop delayed-type hypersensitivity on skin testing or as assessed in vitro by leucocyte migration inhibition. However, 78% of patients investigated had antibody to T. concentricum. The relevance of T-lymphocyte hyporeactivity to persistence of the infection is discussed.

Clinical Profile of Dermatophytoses in North Kerala

“…The incidence of dermatophytes was lowest in age group above 70 years in our study which was quite similar to other studies. 11 In this study, it was observed that males were more commonly affected than females. The male: female ratio in our study was 1.71:1.…”

Mycosis Fungoides with Tinea Pseudoimbricata Owing to Trichophyton Rubrum Infection

“…T-lymphocyte hyporeactivity is thought to allow sequential waves of scaling and infection to occur, forming the widespread, annular, erythematous concentric rings. 5 Our patient had a low absolute CD4 count (with negative serology for HIV), which may have increased his susceptibility to extensive tinea corporis with a tinea pseudoimbricata-like reaction. Also, MF patients have increased susceptibility to infections that involve cutaneous T cells in addition to tinea, such as herpes, Kaposi's varicelliform eruption, 15 and other cutaneous malignancies.…”

Circulating Antigens and Antibodies in Human and Mouse Dermatophytosis: Use of Monoclonal Antibody Reactive to Phosphorylcholine-like Epitopes

“…Whether the PC-bearing dermatophyte antigens in circulation are present alone and/or complexed to antibody, or whether they may in any way be responsible for the impairment of cell-mediated immune function is not yet clear; studies of this question are in progress. However, the patients investigated all had titres of circulating PCbearing antigen in association with chronic dermatophytosis, and patients with T. rubrum or T. concentricum infections have defective cell-mediated immune responses (Hanifin et al, 1974;Hay et al, 1983). It could be interesting to compare these findings with patients infected with dermatophytes such as T. mentugrophytes where lesions are more inflammatory and result in effective cell-mediated immune responses.…”