scedosporiosis

Scedosporiosis

Scedosporiosis is the general name for any mycosis – i.e., fungal infection – caused by a fungus from the genus Scedosporium. Current population-based studies suggest Scedosporium prolificans (also known and recently more commonly referred to as Lomentospora prolificans) and Scedosporium apiospermum to be among the most common infecting agents from the genus, although infections caused by other members thereof are not unheard of. The latter is an asexual form (anamorph) of another fungus, Pseudallescheria boydii. The former is a "black yeast" (aka dematiaceous fungus), currently not characterized as well, although both of them have been described as saprophytes. The fungi of this genus are more and more recognized as significant human pathogens. S. apiospermum is described as an emerging and even an "underrated" opportunistic pathogen. It was reported in a 2003 US study that Scedosporiosis had been associated with 25% of all non-Aspergillus fungal infections for organ transplant patients. In a similar 2005 study scedosporal infections caused a 58% mortality rate for transplant recipients affected with it. Among the patients with cystic fibrosis, it is the second most common fungal infection. Moreover, a certain difficulty has been reported with correctly identifying the pathogen as, for example, scedosporal infections are in some cases almost indistinguishable from infections with other filamentous fungi, like the already-mentioned Aspergillus – this difficulty could have potentially contributed to the "underrating" of the pathogen. All of this, along with the wide resis...