Clinico-epidemiological profile of inflammatory and infective skin diseases in a tertiary care centre in East India

Darbhanga is a municipal corporation and town of the old Darbhanga Raj, it has a humid subtropical climate. Several studies have reported about pattern of skin diseases in different districts of India, but there is no such report from Darbhanga. This prompted us to conduct the present study.

To observe the clinical and epidemiological profile of inflammatory and infectious skin diseases at Darbhanga.

The present retrospective study was conducted from medical records of Dermatology outpatient department of Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital, Darbhanga. Total 1134 patients of inflammatory and infective skin diseases were selected for study. Their demographic data (age and gender) and disease data (type of skin infection) were recorded for analysis.

Analysis revealed that majority (597; 52.65%) of skin diseases belonged to inflammatory group followed by infective group (537;47.35%). Of the inflammatory group, allergic contact dermatitis (209;18.43%) was the most common entity followed by irritant contact dermatitis (180; 15.87%), seborrheic dermatitis (120;10.58%), atopic dermatitis (50; 4.41%), psoriasis (20;1.76%) and pompholyx (18;1.59%). Of the infective group, bacterial infection was the most common disease (349; 30.78%). Followed by parasitic infection (127; 11.20%), fungal infection (58; 5.11%) and viral infection (3;0.26%).

Skin disorders are common in Darbhanga and incidence of inflammatory skin diseases is slightly higher than that of infective skin diseases.