Background: Tinea versicolor is frequently seen superficial infection of stratum corneum by the lipophilic yeast known as malassezia species. A lot of topical and systemic antifungal drugs have been used for the treatment of tinea versicolor and the administration of systemic antifungal drugs have been steadily increasing. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of topical antifungal and topical plus systemic antifungal drugs in the treatment of tinea versicolor. Material and Method: For this purpose, the retrospective data of the patients who referred to dermatology clinic between 1998-2002 with a diagnosis of tinea versicolor, and were followed up regularly by clinical and mycological treatment results were evaluated. Of the 59 pa-tients who were enrolled to the study, 27 (45.8%) were woman and 32 (54.2%) were man. At the and of this evaluation, it is seen that, 23 (39.9%) patients were ad-ministered only topical treatment, 19 (32.2%), 17 (28.8%) of the patients were administered topical anti-fungal drug plus itraconazole and ketoconazole, respectively. Results: At the end of the treatment, the recovery ratios were 82.6% (19 patients), 89.5% (17 patients) and 88.2% (15 patients) in the topical, topical plus itraconazole, topical plus ketoconazole trreatment groups, respectively. There were not statistical significant difference between in three treatment modalities. Conclusion: Topical antifungal drugs are almost as effective as systemic antifungals in the treatment of tinea versi-color, their treatment costs are cheaper and incidence of adverse effects are lower. That's the reason why topical antifungal agents are suitable for the first line treatment in the therapy of tinea versicolor and systemic antifungal drugs may be used in the patients who have frequent re-currences or disseminated lesions.