A Study on Fungal Infection Athlete’s Foot among Soccer Players in the Esfahan City Sport Clubs

The objective of this study is to investigate the prevalence and risk factors for tinea pedis in soccer players. This study was done in summer 2002 on 180 soccer players of the 8 first league clubs of Esfahan. Samples were collected from two forth-interdigital toe web spaces and cultured on Scc agar medium and incubated for 3 weeks. The results showed that a bout 3.33% (n = 6) of players were positive in 3 out of 8 teams. Trichophyton rubrum had a most frequency (4 cases). Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Epidermophyton floccosum isolated from 2 cases. Besides, some factors include exercise hours, kind of stockings and shoes, amount of foot perspiration and route of showering detected by questionnaire. There were not any significant differences between these factors and frequency of infection (p>0.05). However significant relation was observed between different clubs and the frequency of infection in players (χ2 = 0.035).