Tinea capitis in Germany. A survey in 1998

Under the assignment of the ECMM (European Confederation of Medical Mycology) a survey regarding frequency, infectious spectrum and therapy of tinea capitis was conducted in Germany in 1998. In this survey 154 dermatology practitioners and 19 hospitals throughout Germany participated. There were 394 conditions reported, 377 with and 17 without identification of the infectious agent. The most frequent infectious agent was M. canis (n= 216; 54,8 %) before I: mentagrophytes (n = 58; 14,7 %), T. verrucosum (n = 32; 8,1 %), T. violaceum (n = 24; 6,1 %) and T. tonsurans (n = 15; 3,8 %). Zoophilic dermatophytes (n = 306; 81,2%) predominated over anthropophilic species (n = 71; 18,8%) in the ratio of 4: 1. Tinea capitis microsporica showed to be a more frequent infectious disease again which due to its high virulence and contagiosity of the infectious agent represents a therapeutical problem. Tinea capitis occured in an average age of 17,3 years. The preferred therapeutical regimen was a combination of systemic and topical antimycotics in 61,5% (n = 176) of the reported cases (n = 286). A solely topical or systemical monotherapy was reported in 25,2 % (n = 72) respectively 13,3 % (n = 38) of the patients. In case of systemic antimycotics the most frequent used drugs were griseofulvin (43,0 %, n = 101), fluconazole (25,1%, n = 59) or itraconazole (18,7%; n = 44), in topical preparations ciclopiroxolamine dominated (53,3 %, n 121) prior to clotrimazole (13,2%, n = 30) and terbinafine (7,1 %, n= 16). Different from the situation in Germany and in Southern Europe some of the western European countries show a tendency of an increase of anthropophilic agents in tinea capitis.