Ringworm and tinea versicolor. What are the symptoms? What’s the difference?
Although caused by the same fungal infection, ringworm and tinea versicolor. It is considered a different disease with different causes, areas found, and symptoms as follows:
Symptoms of ringworm
Ringworm – caused by dermatophyte fungi.
Common areas – Usually the areas of skin. That expose to the fungus, such as the skin, scalp, hair, and fingernails and toenails.
symptom
– The rash is itchy and has scaly edges.
– The edges of the rash are raised and red. The edge keeps expanding.
Symptoms of ringworm
Tinea versicolor caused by a fungus from the Malassezia furfur group. It is an infection that already lives on human skin. But stimulated Causes the fungus to multiply and cause diseases such as heat, sweat, or decreased immunity. or certain types of medicine
Common areas – face, chest, back, usually are areas of skin that have a lot of sebaceous glands, a lot of sweat, and are damp.
symptom
– The rash has many small ovals or red, white, or brown spots.
– It is finely scaly. The edges can expand into a large rash
– It is usually not itchy.
Characterisic of Malassezia spp. causative agent of Ringworm
The Malassezia spp. cell diameter is approximately 2-8 µm depending on the species. In addition to the thick cell walls. Which has the thickness of 0.12µm. This fungus cells are surrounded by a layer rich in lipids and form a capsule. Which has a role in the pathogenesis. The composition of the cell wall are 70 % carbohydrates 10 % protein and 15-20 % lipid layer.
Physical Diagnosis and Diagnostic Test
It is easy to diagnose Tinea versicolor by naked eye. There will abnormal appearance such as white, pink or brown cruste patches on the surface of the skin. The existing diagnostic tests in microbiology laboratory may aidthe doctors to identify fungi that cause infection. Laboratory Tests carried out include Direct Microscopic examination by potassium hydroxide (KOH) method. KOH is use to dissolve the structure of keratin on skin, hair and nails. Skin samples are taken from patients infecte with Malassezia spp. will show spaghetti. Meatballs characteristic in blue as shown in Figure 2 below. Microscopic examination by scotch tape method can performe using cultured fungus on a growth media and stained using methylene blue staining as shown in Figure 3