Hepatic mucormycosis in a bone marrow transplant recipient who ingested naturopathic medicine

Abstract

This case report describes a bone marrow transplant recipient in whom hepatic zygomycosis developed after ingestion of multiple naturopathic medicines. Mucor was isolated from the patient's liver aspirate and from one of the naturopathic medicines. Arbitrary-primed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analyses were performed on the Mucor isolates from the patient's liver aspirate and from his naturopathic medicine to see if they were genotypically related. Mucor indicus was the species identified in both the patient's liver aspirate and the naturopathic medicine. Arbitrary-primed PCR analysis revealed that these isolates were genotypically identical. We conclude that this bone marrow transplant recipient acquired hepatic mucormycosis from ingestion of a naturopathic medicine containing Mucor.