Delusional tinea: a novel subtype of delusional parasitosis

Delusions of parasitosis is one of the more complex management problems encountered in the dermatology clinic. The difficulty mainly arises from the fact that a psychiatric disease is responsible for the cutaneous pathology. Typically, patients complain of "parasites" or other crawling bugs on their skin. The delusion and its presentation are surprisingly consistent from patient to patient and effective management requires incorporation of psychiatric principles. In this report, we present a rare case of delusion in which the perpetrator was believed to be a "fungus."