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. 2021 Jul 23;7(8):588.
doi: 10.3390/jof7080588.

Epidemiology of Invasive Fungal Diseases in Patients with Hematologic Malignancies and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Recipients Managed with an Antifungal Diagnostic Driven Approach

Maria Daniela Bergamasco  1 , Carlos Alberto P Pereira  1 , Celso Arrais-Rodrigues  2 , Diogo B Ferreira  1 , Otavio Baiocchi  2 , Fabio Kerbauy  2 , Marcio Nucci  3 , Arnaldo Lopes Colombo  1
Affiliations

Epidemiology of Invasive Fungal Diseases in Patients with Hematologic Malignancies and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Recipients Managed with an Antifungal Diagnostic Driven Approach

Maria Daniela Bergamasco et al. J Fungi (Basel). .

Abstract

Patients with hematologic malignancies and hematopoietic cell transplant recipients (HCT) are at high risk for invasive fungal disease (IFD). The practice of antifungal prophylaxis with mold-active azoles has been challenged recently because of drug-drug interactions with novel targeted therapies. This is a retrospective, single-center cohort study of consecutive cases of proven or probable IFD, diagnosed between 2009 and 2019, in adult hematologic patients and HCT recipients managed with fluconazole prophylaxis and an antifungal diagnostic-driven approach for mold infection. During the study period, 94 cases of IFD occurred among 664 hematologic patients and 316 HCT recipients. The frequency among patients with allogeneic HCT, autologous HCT, acute leukemia and other hematologic malignancies was 8.9%, 1.6%, 17.3%, and 6.4%, respectively. Aspergillosis was the leading IFD (53.2%), followed by fusariosis (18.1%), candidiasis (10.6%), and cryptococcosis (8.5%). The overall 6-week mortality rate was 37.2%, and varied according to the host and the etiology of IFD, from 28% in aspergillosis to 52.9% in fusariosis. Although IFD occurred frequently in our cohort of patients managed with an antifungal diagnostic driven approach, mortality rates were comparable to other studies. In the face of challenges posed by the use of anti-mold prophylaxis, this strategy remains a reasonable alternative.

Keywords: aspergillosis; candidiasis; cryptococcosis; epidemiology; fungal infection; fusariosis; hematologic malignancy; hematopoietic cell transplantation; invasive fungal disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of invasive fungal disease in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant recipients according to the period post-transplant.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Six-week survival curves for all patients (all underlying conditions) according to the type of invasive fungal disease (log rank, p = 0.04).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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