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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2001, p. 2360-2363, Vol. 39, No. 6
Departments of
Microbiology1,
Surgery,3 and
Pathology,4 Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait
University, and Departments of
Pathology5 and
Surgery6 and Mycology Reference
Laboratory,2 Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital,
Ministry of Public Health, Kuwait
Received 5 July 2000/Returned for modification 16 October
2000/Accepted 14 February 2001
Basidiobolus ranarum is a known cause of subcutaneous
zygomycosis. Recently, its etiologic role in gastrointestinal
infections has been increasingly recognized. While the clinical
presentation of the subcutaneous disease is quite characteristic and
the disease is easy to diagnose, gastrointestinal basidiobolomycosis
poses diagnostic difficulties; its clinical presentation is
nonspecific, there are no identifiable risk factors, and all age groups
are susceptible. The case of gastrointestinal basidiobolomycosis
described in the present report occurred in a 41-year-old Indian male
who had a history of repair of a left inguinal hernia 2 years earlier and who is native to the southern part of India, where the subcutaneous form of the disease is indigenous. Diagnosis is based on the isolation of B. ranarum from cultures of urine and demonstration of
broad, sparsely septate hyphal elements in histopathologic sections of the colon, with characteristic eosinophilic infiltration and the Splendore-Hoeppli phenomenon. The titers of both immunoglobulin G (IgG)
and IgM antibodies to locally produced antigen of the fungus were
elevated. The patient failed to respond to 8 weeks of amphotericin B
therapy, and the isolate was later found to be resistant to
amphotericin B, itraconazole, fluconazole, and flucytosine but
susceptible to ketoconazole and miconazole. One other noteworthy
feature of the fungus was that the patient's serum showed raised
levels of Th2-type cytokines (interleukins 4 and 10) and tumor necrosis
factor alpha. The present report underscores the need to consider
gastrointestinal basidiobolomycosis in the differential diagnosis of
inflammatory bowel diseases and suggests that, perhaps, more time
should be invested in developing standardized serologic reagents that
can be used as part of a less invasive means of diagnosis of the disease.
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.6.2360-2363.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Basidiobolus ranarum as an Etiologic
Agent of Gastrointestinal Zygomycosis
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 24923, Kuwait 13110, Kuwait. Phone: (0965) 5312300. Fax: (0965) 5332719. E-mail: ziauddin{at}hsc.kuniv.edu.kw.
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