Although blastomycosis is prevalent in the North American continent, it occurs only sporadically in Africa. We describe a 42 yr old patient who complained of intermittent cough and haemoptysis. Clinical findings were strongly suggestive of lung cancer. The diagnosis of pulmonary blastomycosis was made at thoracotomy. This rather unusual disease in our areas caused a considerable delay in securi...

A 26-year-old veiled Saudi-Arabian woman presented with hemoptysis, and multiple nodules and abscesses. A skin biopsy specimen revealed yeast forms consistent with Blastomyces dermatitidis. Fungal cultures from bronchoscopy and skin specimens also grew B dermatitidis. She was treated with oral itraconazole (200 mg twice a day). Both lung and skin lesions showed improvement within 6 weeks.

BACKGROUND Blastomycosis is a potentially fatal infection caused by the fungus Blastomyces dermatitidis. During January 1 through March 5, 2006, twenty-one laboratory confirmed cases of blastomycosis were reported among residents of an endemic area in north-central Wisconsin; a striking increase compared with previous years. The objective of the study was to determine if an observed increase in...

We read with great interest the paper by Cheikh Rouhou et al., which was recently published online in TheScientificWorldJOURNAL[1]. In this article, the authors report a new case of pulmonary and vertebral blastomycosis from Tunisia. They found that the probable reservoir of Blastomyces dermatitidis is the soil. Blastomycosis is considered a rare and sporadic disease in Africa, unlike in some e...