Introduction

BioGnost’s Potassium hydroxide, solution for fungi is intended for preparation of sections for microscopical fungi samples analysis. It is one of the simple reagents used as a part of standard procedures for detecting presence of fungal infection in the tested sample, but not for detecting which phylum the fungus is classified in. Most of fungal infections are caused by dermatophyte fungi – they are keratophilic microorganisms that have affinity towards keratin found in skin, fingernails and hair. In order to achieve fast and simple manner of confirming presence of fungi, an adequate sample (scrapings of skin, hair, piece of fingernail, sputum, fungal culture from culture medium) must be placed on the glass slide; after that, potassium hydroxide is added to the sample – it is a solution that can destroy all the structures except fungi. After the sample is reduced to fungi, they can be microscopically easily detectable because they are slightly green in color during refraction of light.