Some factors affecting survival in systemic blastomycosis.

T he finding of over 200 proved cases of blastomycosis in the state of Kentucky has aflorded interesting material to study the survival rates and factors affecting survival rates in this systemic fungus disease. The question of survival in blastomycosis is still subject to some controversy since in the original series reported by Martin and Smith1 of 117 cases in 1939, some 92 per cent of whom were dead within five years. On the other hand, in the Veterans Administration series reported in 1964,2 only about a quarter had died in the period of followup of up to 16 years. Sutliff et a13 reported about the same figure (28 per cent) in two to four years. It has not been possible to carry out careful follow-up over a number of years, and the effect of such factors as age, treatment and type of disease has not been evaluated. It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to evaluate some of these factors in the prognosis of this disease.