Archive Of Standardized Exam Questions: Tinea Capitis

OVERVIEW

This page is dedicated to organizing various examples of standardized exam questions whose answer is tinea capitis. While this may seem a odd practice, it is useful to see multiple examples of how tinea capitis will be characterized on standardized exams (namely the boards and the shelf exams). This page is not meant to be used as a tradition question bank (as all of the answers will be the same), however seeing the classic “test” characterization for a disease is quite valuable.

QUESTION EXAMPLES

Question # 1

A 9 year old girl is brought to the clinic by her mother because she has been losing hair on her scalp. Several weeks ago the mother noticed a patch of hair loss, which has seemed to grow in size. The mother explains that the child frequently will scratch the area. The patient recently changed schools and has been very nervous about making new friends. A image of the patient’s scalp is shown below:

Source
Source

There are several enlarged (but non-tender) occipital and posterior auricular lymph nodes. What diagnosis may explain this presentation?

 

Page Updated: 11.26.2016