Epidemiological and clinical comparisons of paediatric and adult sporotrichosis in Jilin Province, China

Summary Sporotrichosis is endemic in Jilin Province of Northeast China. While paediatric cases make a substantial contribution to the epidemiological profile of sporotrichosis, the differences in the epidemiology and clinical manifestations of sporotrichosis between paediatric and adult patients remain unclear. We retrospectively reviewed the clinical records of 2968 cases of sporotrichosis (2113 adult patients aged ≥ 15 years and 855 paediatric patients aged < 15 years) over a nine‐year period (01/01/2010‐31/12/2018‐). All the patients were diagnosed with sporotrichosis based on fungal culture of material from a skin lesion. In paediatric patients, the male:female ratio was 1.3:1, the incidence of sporotrichosis in the cold seasons was high (79.0%), most lesions occurred in the facial region (92.2%), and there was a preponderance of fixed cutaneous sporotrichosis (86.8%). In adult patients, the male:female ratio was 1:2.4, the incidence of sporotrichosis in the cold seasons was 66.0%, most lesions affected the extremities (48.6%) and the face (44.9%), and fixed cutaneous sporotrichosis was common (69.3%). The results indicate there were significant differences in the distribution of paediatric and adult sporotrichosis patients by sex, season with the highest occurrence of sporotrichosis, lesion sites and clinical types. Our results suggest that the epidemiology and clinical manifestations between paediatric and adult patients were different, and the route of infection of sporotrichosis in children may differ from that of adults in Jilin Province.