Pulmonary mucormycosis: what is the best strategy for therapy?

Pulmonary mucormycosis is an uncommon but lifethreatening opportunistic fungal infection.1,2 It typically affects immunocompromised patients, such as recipients of stem cell or organ transplant, and has worse outcomes in those with hematologic malignancy or neutropenia.1,3 In other immunosuppressed states, such as diabetes mellitus, it is less frequent.2,4 In some series the incidence of pulmonary mucormycosis has been reported to be up to 24% among all cases of mucormycosis, but it may be underestimated due to the difficulties in diagnosis.1,2 This infection has a high mortality (40–76%), and carries substantial morbidity in some cases, due to a rapid local progression and prominent angioinvasion.2,4,5 Its clinical presentation ranges from acute to subacute, depending on the immune status of the host.