Advanced Health Assessment

Laboratory Tests Video Transcript

This presentation will review some common diagnostic tests that you would do in the office to help identify etiologies related to skin changes. A Wood's light lamp is a long wave ultraviolet light that is used to diagnose lesions suspected to be fungal in origin. One would obtain a skin scraping and use potassium hydroxide mixed with the skin scraping, and put that under the microscope. That would also show fungal origins. Then, of course, bacterial cultures or viral cultures are done to detect whether or not the etiology related to the lesion is related to bacteria or viruses, such as herpes. Here is a picture of what you would see on a KOH preparation looking for fungal organisms. You can see that the little branches, those are called hyphae, and the little round dots there that you see that are a little bit fluorescent looking are the buds. That's what we call hyphae and budding that you would see in any type of fungal infection, whether it be skin, mouth, or a vulvovaginal candidiasis.