Disseminated Fusarium sp. infection affecting the brain of a child after bone marrow transplantation

Abstract

A case of Fusarium sp. infection of the brain in a 6-year-old child who underwent allogeneic BMT is reported. As far as the authors know, this is the first report of Fusarium sp. encephalitis in a BMT patient. Fusarium sp. infection is a rare but emerging fungal pathogen after BMT and, because of several similarities, it is often mistaken for other mold infections, such as Aspergillus sp. The importance of early identification of this fungus as a cause of disseminated fungal infection in BMT patients, and some new modalities of Fusarium sp disseminated infection treatment are discussed here.