Clinical and pigmentary variation of pityriasis versicolor in al-Muthana Government's patients

Abstract EN

Background : Pityriasis versicolor, one of the most common disorders of pigmentation.

It is a cutaneous superficial fungal infection characterized by pigmentary changes due to colonization of stratum corneum by dimorphic lipophilic yeast ; Malassezia furfur.

In general, pityriasis versicolor is thought to cause hypopigmented lesions in individuals with dark skin and hyperpigmented lesions in those with white skin.

Objective : It is a descriptive study to know the pigmentary variation of tinea versicolor in Al-Muthana Government.

Patients and Methods : This study was based on a sample size of 100 patients of pityriasis versicolor who attended the department of Dermatology and Venereology at Al-Samawa general hospital in the periods from January 2009 to March 2010.

Diagnosis of tinea versicolor was established by 10 % KOH examination of scraping from skin lesion and wood's lamp examination for the golden yellow fluorescence of skin lesions.

Result : From 100 patients with pityriasis versicolor, there were 64 males and 36 females.

The age of patients ranged from 5-65 years with a mean age of 24.25 ± 3.22 years.

Majority of cases (41 %) occurred in the age group of 21-30 years.

Sixty sex (66 %) of cases had hyperpigmented macular lesions followed by hypopigmented type (23 %), combination of both ; hyperpigmentation and hypopigmentation (6 %) and erythematous type (5 %) of lesions.

The predominant site of the disease was trunk especially the upper trunk involves in 79 cases, followed by neck in 45 cases, upper limb in 34 cases face in 28 cases and lower limb in 11 cases.

Conclusion: all types of pigmentary variations in pityriasis versicolor are present in Al-Muthana's patients with a predominance of hyperpigmented ones.