Invasive Trichosporon cutaneum infection: an increasing problem in immunosuppressed patients

Abstract

Trichosporon cutaneum (syn. T. beigelii), a saprophytic fungal organism normally found in the soil, is increasingly being recognized as a cause of life-threatening systemic illness in immunosuppressed patients. Of 42 cases reported in the literature, 27 (64%) have died, including all four occurring after bone marrow transplantation. We report here a 44-year-old man who developed an invasive pulmonary infection and fungemia with T. cutaneum following bone marrow transplantation. The infection was manifest by severe respiratory distress and hypoxemia despite a clear chest X-ray, and was diagnosed by the identification of fungal hyphae on a percutaneous lung aspirate and by culture of the organism from the blood. Despite the previous reports indicating that there is a high mortality rate in this situation, the patient recovered following treatment with amphotericin B, miconazole and ketoconazole. T. cutaneum needs to be recognized as a potentially serious but treatable pathogen in severely immunosuppressed patients, including bone marrow transplant recipients.