Advances in the supportive care during the treatment of hematologic malignancies have improved the life expectancy of afflicted patients. However, this progress is increasingly at the expense of developing a wider range of infectious complications caused by drug-resistant organisms. The…
Definition Dematiaceous fungi represent a large group of fungal organisms characterized by the presence of abundant melanin in the cell wall. This melanin gives rise to a brown-black coloration on artificial culture media and in histopathologic specimens. A related term,…
Definition Mucormycosis is the unifying term used to describe infections caused by fungi belonging to the order Mucorales. Mucorales typically cause aggressive, acute-onset, frequently fatal or disfiguring, angioinvasive infections, especially in immunosuppressed hosts. Epidemiology Mucorales fungi are distributed worldwide and…
The disappearance of the class Zygomycetes from current taxonomy has made the term zygomycosis obsolete. The term zygomycosis encompassed both mucormycosis and entomophthoramycosis. These two infections are so different that no new name has been proposed to include both infections.…
Advances in the supportive care during the treatment of hematologic malignancies have improved the life expectancy of afflicted patients. However, this progress is increasingly at the expense of developing a wider range of infectious complications caused by drug-resistant organisms. The…