Potassium hydroxide (KOH) preps, combined with calcofluor white stain, are useful to highlight fungal elements in the diagnosis of infections involving hair, skin, and nails.  Where necessary to guide therapy, KOH preps may be followed by fungal culture for definitive identification.

KOH preps were previously orderable in Epic as a subset of wound cultures, which is not intuitive for sample types that are not wounds.

To facilitate easier and more intuitive ordering, two new tests are now available in Epic to obtain a KOH prep on hair, skin, and nails with or without a followup fungal culture:

KOH PREP (FUNGAL STAIN, KOH WITH CALCOFLUOR WHITE) (LAB2354)
   and
MICROBIOLOGY: TISSUE/WOUND (KOH - INCLUDES FUNGAL CULTURE)

Both can be found by searching for “KOH” in Epic:

Please address questions to Bradley Ford, MD PhD, Associate Director of Microbiology, at 356-2990 or bradley-ford-1@uiowa.edu.