Onychomycosis: the development of a clinical diagnostic aid for toenail disease. Part I. Establishing discriminating historical and clinical features

Abstract

Our results have shown one historical feature and three clinical features to be strongly associated with onychomycosis. The questionnaire has been revised to include only these stems and is being tested further with the aim of achieving a binary definition.

Occult tinea pedis in an Israeli population and predisposing factors for the acquisition of the disease

“…Tinea pedis has a high prevalence in the general population and has been estimated to affect up to 25% of individuals. 20,[23][24][25][26][27][28] Another finding of this study identified the frequency of occult tinea pedis as being higher in men; this is in accordance with the findings of previous studies. This implies that subjects with occult disease are able to transmit the disease despite being asymptomatic and demonstrating an absence of clinical symptoms.…”

Onychomycosis: Newer insights in pathogenesis and diagnosis

“…Fletcher et al, found that four parameters significantly related to positive mycology results were: a history of tinea pedis in the last year; scaling on one or both soles, white crumbly patches on the nail surface, and an abnormal color of the nail plate. [28] Doval et al, reported that plantar desquamation offered a positive predictive value of 81% for presence of fungi. [29] However, none of the studies professes complete reliance on clinical features alone for a diagnosis of OM.…”

New reasons for histopathological nail‐clipping examination in the diagnosis of onychomycosis

“…However, antifungal systemic therapy is expensive and may be accompanied by unwanted side effects such as drug interaction, rising liver enzymes etc. Therefore, reliable diagnostic methods are important to verify fungal infection prior treatment 3–5 …”