A Patient of Fish Odour Syndrome with recurrent Tinea Corporis

Abstract

This was a case of the 43-year-old male complaining of severe well-demarcated irregular-shaped, centrally non-cleared, extensive, non-scaly plaques with raised borders. The patient was having severe itching all over the body. The interesting fact about this case is that this patient’s sweat has had the smell of rotten fish for the last 5 years. This patient is a known case of Fish odour syndrome diagnosed by the presence of trimethylaminuria in his urine 5 years back. The patient informed us that when he didn’t have the bad odour in his sweat, he did not develop the above-mentioned lesions of tinea corporis. The patient was very frustrated and socially isolated because of severe itching and the bad odour in his sweat. The role of trimethylamine (TMA) causes bad odour in the sweat, mouth and urine. We don’t encounter cases like this very often and we are reporting this case because after a detailed inquiry about the patient’s family history the same condition persists with 4 other patient’s family members but they did not report themselves as they are mostly less educated, live in a rural area and they don’t want to visit any doctor. We want to increase the knowledge of the medical fraternity to deal with these cases in a better way and maybe we are opening a new horizon for the researchers.

Keywords

• fish odour syndrome
• itching
• sweat
• trimethylamine (tma)
• tinea corporis