Annals of Clinical Microbiology, The official Journal of the Korean Society of Clinical Microbiology

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Indexed in KCI, KoreaMed, Synapse, DOAJ
Open Access, Peer Reviewed
pISSN 2288-0585 eISSN 2288-6850
Case report

A Case of Bloodstream Infection Due to Fusarium oxysporum

Bong Joon Oh, Jong Hee Shin, Kwang Jin Kim, Duck Cho, Seong Jung Kee, Myung Gun Shin, Soon Pal Suh, and Dong Wook Ryang

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea

Corresponding to Jong Hee Shin, E-mail: shinjh@chonnam.ac.kr

Ann Clin Microbiol 2005;8(2):189-193.
Copyright © Korean Society of Clinical Microbiology.

Abstract

Fusarium species are representative of the emerging group of filamentous molds, which cause respiratory and disseminated infections in immunocompromised patients. To date, only five cases of respiratory or disseminated skin infections due to Fusarium spp. have been described in Korea. Here we describe a fungemia case of Fusarium oxysporum in a 3-year old boy who was neutropenic following chemotheray for leukemia. Fever, painful macules on both extremities and phlebitis on the site of venous blood sampling developed on the day 35 of admission. All four blood cultures obtained on hospital days 37, 38, 40 and 42 yielded the same F. oxysporum. The infection was cured with a high dose (1.5 mg/kg) of amphotericin B. This case shows that Fusarium is among a few filamentous fungi that cause clinically detectable fungemias in immuncompromised hosts. (Korean J Clin Microbiol 2005;8(2):189-193)

Keywords

Fusarium oxysporum, Bloodstream infection, High dose antifungal therapy, Neutropenia