Clinical Diagnostic Accuracy of Onychomycosis: A Multispecialty Comparison Study

Table 1

Toenail specimens sent for periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining by dermatologists, podiatrists, and other physicians.

	Number of Specimens Sent	Proportion Sent for Confirmation (%)	Proportion PAS Positive (%)‡
Dermatologist	160	58.1	75.3
Podiatrist	198	63.1	80.8
Other Physicians	183	38.8	66.2

Other physicians include any nondermatologist physician including internal medicine, plastic surgery, and orthopedic surgery.
‡ P<0.05 comparing cohorts of podiatrists to other physicians. Other comparisons were not statistically significant.