BACKGROUND Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) is the most common invasive fungal disease in immunocompromised patients, and it has a 30 % mortality rate despite appropriate antifungal therapy. This retrospective study was performed to determine risk factors for mortality in immunocompromised children with IPA. METHODS Medical records of 45 probable/proven IPA cases diagnosed in children w...

BACKGROUND Neutropenic patients with persistent fever despite antibiotic therapy are managed with empirical or pre-emptive antifungal therapy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the current clinical use and efficacy of these two approaches in patients with high risk hematologic conditions. DESIGN AND METHODS An electronic medical record system, the "Hema e-Chart", was designed and i...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Lung transplantation remains the main therapy for patients with end-stage lung disease, yet survival remains limited by infection and chronic rejection. Invasive fungal infection, especially invasive aspergillosis, continues to cause a high rate of mortality after lung transplantation, and there is evidence that fungal colonization in itself may have a negative impact as well....

PURPOSE To identify prognostic factors for the outcomes of empirical antifungal therapy, we performed a multicenter, prospective, observational study in immunocompromised patients with hematological malignancies. MATERIALS AND METHODS Three hundred seventy-six patients (median age of 48) who had neutropenic fever and who received intravenous (IV) itraconazole as an empirical antifungal therap...

Pathogenic fungi are the cause of life-threatening infections in an increasing number of immunocompromised patients. The intrinsic resistance to antifungal therapy observed in some genera, along with the development of resistance during treatment in others, is becoming a major problem in the management of these diseases. We reviewed the epidemiology of the most common systemic fungal infections...

Application of pharmacodynamic principles to antifungal drug therapy of Candida and Aspergillus infections has provided and understanding of the relationship between drug dosing and treatment efficacy. Observations of the pharmacodynamics of triazoles and AmB have correlated with the results of clinical trials and have proven useful for validation of in vitro susceptibility breakpoints. Althoug...

The root of Hibiscus syriacus (Malvaceae) has been used for treatment of fungal diseases such as tinea pedis (athlete's foot). In this study, we investigated the antifungal constituent of the root of Hibiscus syriacus Ggoma, which was produced by a mutation breeding using gamma ray irradiation, and compared the antifungal activity of H. syriacus Ggoma and its parent type. According to the resul...

Background and Purpose: The incidence of fungal infection as well as candidemia has increased significantly, contributing to morbidity and mortality in the developed countries. The alarming increase in infections with multidrug resistant bacteria is due to overuse of a broad spectrum antimicrobials, which leads to over growth of Candida spp.; thus, enhancing its opportunity to cause the disease...

OBJECTIVES We sought to determine the impact of timing of appropriate antifungal therapy, as assessed by susceptibility results, on patient survival. METHODS Patients ≥16 years of age with first episodes of candidaemia during 2001-09 were included. Clinical data were collected retrospectively, including time to appropriate antifungal therapy and patient survival. RESULTS The study populatio...

OBJECTIVES To provide benchmarking data on antifungal use in intensive care units (ICUs), to analyse risk factors and to look for correlations with antibiotic use data and structure parameters. METHODS Antimicrobial use data for 13 ICUs were obtained from computerized databases from January 2004 through June 2005. Antimicrobial usage density (AD) is expressed as daily defined doses/1000 patie...