This report describes a 29-year-old man with AIDS and disseminated lymphocutaneous sporotrichosis diagnosis presenting a poor therapeutic adhesion to itraconazole therapy that later evolved to neurological impairment and death. Necropsy showed granulomatous reaction and yeast-like forms similar to Sporothrix schenckii in meninges, lymph nodes, marrow bone, skin, testicles...
Geographic information systems (GIS) are powerful tools for investigating the ecogeography of environmentally acquired infections. GIS technology was used to geocode and map cases of blastomycosis, by household, of human and dog residents of Vilas County, Wisconsin, USA. Human case households (n=136) were from a comprehensive street address registry 1979–2001; human controls were...
The objective of this investigation was to assess the prevalence of dermatophytoses in children in a geographically restricted area in the Ethiopian countryside, and to determine the aetiological agents of these infections. Demographical and clinical-dermatological data were collected from all children 4–15 years of age on Tulugudu Island, Southern Ethiopia. Mycological specimens...
The use of the agar diffusion Neo-Sensitabs' method to determine antifungal susceptibility of 59 isolates of dermatophytes, namely Epidermophytonfloccosum, Microsporumcanis, M.gypseum, Trichophytonmentagrophytes, T.rubrum and T.tonsurans to Clotrimazole (CLZ), Itraconazole (ITZ) and Terbinafine (TBF) is described. Results obtained are compared to the minimum inhibitory...
Airborne fungi are ubiquitous in the environment and human exposure is inevitable. Such fungi differ greatly in their taxonomic, physical, ecological, behavioral, and pathogenic characteristics. Many strategies have evolved to sample, identify and interpret fungal exposure and their choice is determined by the hypotheses involved. While fungi can be sampled directly from surfaces...
The incidence of invasive aspergillosis was estimated among 4621 hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) and 4110 solid organ transplants (SOT) at 19 sites dispersed throughout the United States, during a 22 month period from 1 March 2001 through 31 December 2002. Cases were identified using the consensus definitions for proven and probable infection developed by the Invasive...
Aspergillosis is a potentially lethal infection of immunocompromised patients. Until 10 years ago, antifungal therapy was largely limited to amphotericin B deoxycholate. Perceived poor response rates and inherent toxicities with amphotericin B deoxycholate were a major stimulus for the development of newer antifungals, including lipid-formulated amphotericin B, broad spectrum...
The risks for invasive fungal infections, particularly mould infections such as invasive aspergillosis, among hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients are linked to the duration and severity of myelosuppression and immunosuppression. Strategies to prevent invasive fungal infections have focused primarily on the use of orally administered azole antifungal agents during...
Changing transplantation practices, novel immunosuppressive protocols, and evolving recipient characteristics have led to notable changes in the epidemiology of invasive aspergillosis in transplant recipients. The frequency of disseminated infection and of central nervous system involvement has declined significantly in organ transplant recipients in the recent years. Amongst...
Primary immunodeficiencies are rare and usually first manifest during childhood. Invasive aspergillosis is the leading cause of mortality in chronic granulomatous disease (CGD), reflecting the key role of the phagocyte NADPH oxidase in host defense against opportunistic fungi. Despite interferon-γ prophylaxis, invasive filamentous fungal infections are a persistent problem in CGD...
Invasive aspergillosis remains the primary cause of death from infection following allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Most cases occur during the second or third month after transplantation, during graft-versus-host disease or immunosuppression. Strategies for management of these cases include the development of more effective antifungals for prophylaxis, the use of biological...
Patients suffering from acute leukemia are at high risk for invasive aspergillosis and a large review and a recent clinical trial have shown that they represent the largest group of patients developing the disease. New host groups such as patients with multiple myeloma or low-grade lymphoproliferative disorders have contributed to an increase in the incidence of invasive...
Filamentous fungi and yeasts both undergo polar growth. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where the mechanisms for polar growth are well-understood, polarity requires three steps: establishment of cortical markers specifying the site of bud emergence; relaying the bud site information via the Cdc42 Rho GTPase module; and recruitment of the morphogenetic machinery needed to remodel the...
The immunosuppressive effect of dexamethasone (DEX) on macrophage killing activity and cytokine production in response to Aspergillus fumigatus conidia is antagonized by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). However, the intersection of signaling pathways and the molecular mechanism of this antagonism remain to be defined. We postulated that DEX inhibition of...
The protective role of lung surfactant proteins SP-A, SP-D and MBL in the host defense against both allergic and invasive aspergillosis was identified and established by a series of in vitro and in vivo studies. Therapeutic administration of SP-D and MBL proteins in a murine model of pulmonary invasive aspergillosis rescued mice from death. In mice mimicking human allergic...
Imaging findings in the pulmonary aspergilloses can answer important clinical questions. Steroid-responsive chronic asthma due to allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis can be differentiated from simple asthma by computed tomography (CT) evidence of extensive and severe central bronchiectasis, mucoid impaction, or small airways lesions. The simple aspergilloma can be...
Within the past decade surrogate markers have become important and reliable tools for the early diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis. Surrogate markers include the antigens galactomannan and (1→3)-β-D-glucan for which commercial assays are available, as well as fungal DNA for which experimental PCR assays have been developed. Although many clinical validation studies have been...
Animal models of aspergillosis have been used extensively to study various aspects of pathogenesis, innate and acquired host-response, disease transmission and therapy. Several different animal models of aspergillosis have been developed. Because aspergillosis is an important pulmonary disease in birds, avian models have been used successfully to study preventative vaccines...
Why a meeting devoted exclusively to Aspergillus and aspergillosis? Our reasons were that aspergillosis is now the leading fungal cause of patient mortalit
Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is endemic in Latin America and in countries like Brazil it carries a high mortality rate. The fungus’ habitat has not been precisely determined. The present study aims to identify ecologic correlates based on PCM distribution in a hyper-endemic area in southeastern Brazil. The Geographic Information System (GIS) and spatial statistics were used to...
The aim was to describe the mycological and clinical data in children diagnosed with tinea capitis in a hospital setting in Stockholm. Information concerning demography, symptoms, mycology and treatment were obtained, retrospectively, from medical records of all children up to 15 years of age diagnosed with tinea capitis during two 3-year periods, 1989–1991 and 1999–2001, at the...
A retrospective study of 155 cats and 40 dogs diagnosed with cryptococcosis between 1981 and 2001 was undertaken. Age, sex, breed, clinical findings, feline immunodeficiency virus and feline leukaemia virus status (in cats), species of Cryptococcus causing disease and region of domicile were recorded. Associations between variables were tested. Male and female cats were affected...
Animal models of invasive aspergillosis have been used for virulence studies and antifungal efficacy evaluations but results have been inconsistent. In an attempt to reproduce human infection, many Aspergillus animal models have utilized a ‘pulmonary route’ for delivery of conidia, largely through intranasal instillation. However, several radiolabeled particle studies have shown...
Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a severe disease caused by the dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioidesbrasiliensis, which is characterized by granulomatous pulmonary and systemic lesions, affecting mainly men between 20 and 60 years of age. Reports of PCM disease in animals are rare, but the disease has been described in armadillos. On the other hand, PCM infection of domestic and wild...
Chronic necrotizing pulmonary aspergillosis is not common and usually involves mildly immunosuppressed patients. We present a case of a 58-year-old man with a history of mining-related pneumoconiosis and corticosteroid therapy who developed bilateral pulmonary infiltrates and subsequent cavitation. The patient was treated at first as having community-acquired pneumonia and was...