Fungal infections involving maxillary sinus – a difficult diagnostic task

Fungal infections of the paranasal sinus are increasingly recognized entity both in normal and immunocompromised individuals. Aspergillosis and Mucormycoses being the commonest of all the fungal infections involving maxillary sinus manifests as two distinct entities, a non-invasive and invasive infection. It is important to distinguish the invasive disease from the non-invasive as the treatment and prognosis are different in each. These infections present a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge to the physicians. Early diagnosis is essential in order to avoid high morbidity and mortality associated with the destructive disease and to instigate treatment before irreversible condition arise. The purpose of this paper is to add a few more cases of fungal infections involving maxillary sinus to the literature in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised patients with an emphasis on the fact that early diagnosis is vital in these infections, because delay in initiation of treatment can be life threatening due to propensity of fungi to invade adjacent blood vessels and embolize to distant organs.