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Mucormycosis
Published in Srijan Goswami, Chiranjeeb Dey, COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, 2022
Soumyajit Dutta, Srijan Goswami
Mucormycosis is an angioinvasive, non-contagious but serious life-threatening disease known to be caused by a group of fungi called mucormycetes. The word “mucormycosis” is derived from two Latin words Mucor and mycosis. The word Mucor (Latin) refers to mold and mycosis (Latin) refers to “the presence of fungi as parasites in the body”. The mucormycetes group of fungi can be found everywhere in the environment especially on surfaces with dead and decaying organic matter. Encounters with these fungi groups are completely unavoidable but they are not harmful to the majority of the human population. However, in individuals with immunosuppressive conditions, inhalation of the spores from the fungi may cause pulmonary infection and inflammation of nasal sinuses or may even spread to different locations of the body, thus causing a serious pathological state (WHO, 2021; CDC, 2021). Mucormycosis may be caused by several types of fungi belonging to the order Mucorales. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rhizopus and Mucor are the two most common species of fungus that are known to cause mucormycosis, the other possible names include Rhizomucor species, Cunninghamella bertholletiae, Apophysomyces, Lichtheimia, and Saksenaea (WHO, 2021; CDC, 2021).
Epidemiology of fungal infections: What, where, and when
Published in Mahmoud A. Ghannoum, John R. Perfect, Antifungal Therapy, 2019
Frederic Lamoth, Sylvia F. Costa, Barbara D. Alexander
The agents of mucormycosis are members either of the order Entomophthorales or of the order Mucorales. These organisms are characterized by sparsely septate hyphae in tissue. The hyphae are broad, variable in diameter, and polymorphic, with irregular branching, and in the case of the Mucorales, may invade blood vessels with thrombosis, tissue infarction, and necrosis [5,70,215,273]. The molds of the order Entomophthorales are usually found in tropical areas, in soil, decaying vegetation, on insects, and as saprobes in the gastrointestinal tract of reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Of the Entomophthorales, Basidiobolus and Conidiobolus species are pathogenic to humans, causing subcutaneous infections of the extremities and trunk, and of the nasal submucosa, respectively [274]. Members of the order Mucorales are found in soil, decaying vegetation, fruits, foodstuffs, and animal excreta in a wide geographic distribution. The portal of entry for infection is likely pulmonary with eventual dissemination to other sites, though primary cutaneous infection has been reported [275]. The Mucorales cause the majority of cases of human mucormycosis, with Rhizopus, Mucor, Rhizomucor, Lichtheimia (formerly Absidia), Apophysomyces, and Cunninghamella, among others, found in the literature [47,274,276–279]. The most commonly reported cause of human infection is Rhizopus.
Mucor and Mucormycosis
Published in Dongyou Liu, Handbook of Foodborne Diseases, 2018
Other Mucorales occasionally implicated in human mucormycosis are Apophysomyces spp. (family Saksenaceae, often isolated from clinical cases in India), Saksenaea vasiformis (family Saksenaceae), and Cunninghamella bertholletiae (family Cunninghamellaceae). Furthermore, some Cokeromyces, Syncephalastrum, and Actinomucor species may be found in human clinical specimens, although they do not seem to invade tissues [4].
Fatal renal mucormycosis with Apophysomyces elegans in an apparently healthy male
Published in The Aging Male, 2020
Sameera Rashid, Fatma Ben Abid, Shafiq Babu, Martin Christner, Abdulqadir Alobaidly, Abdulla Ali Asad Al Ansari, Mohammed Akhtar
Mucormycosis is a rare fungal infection caused by a group of molds called mucormycetes. These molds are ubiquitous in the environment and mainly affect people with weakened immune systems. For instance, in the United States the annual incidence of mucormycosis has been estimated around 1.7 infections per million populations; approximately 500 cases per year [1]. The most common predisposing factors for mucormycosis are HIV/AIDS, uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, cancers, chronic kidney disease, malnutrition, organ transplant, long term corticosteroid, and immunosuppressive therapy [2]. However, there have been cases of mucormycosis reported in healthy individuals with no apparent predisposing factors. Apophysomyces elegans is a subspecies of zygomycetes mostly reported in immunocompetent patients with skin trauma [2,3]. We report a case of a healthy Indian male who developed an invasive mucormycosis of the left kidney and died with disseminated fungal infection.
Management of osteoarticular fungal infections in the setting of immunodeficiency
Published in Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy, 2020
Savvas G. Papachristou, Elias Iosifidis, Nikolaos V. Sipsas, Maria N. Gamaletsou, Thomas J. Walsh, Emmanuel Roilides
The major groups of interest among non-Aspergillus filamentous fungi are hyalohyphomycetes, dematiaceous molds and fungi from the order of Mucorales [8]. Mucorales are the second most prevalent mold causing infection of bones after Aspergillus species [2] and the first most prevalent group among non-Aspergillus spp [3]. Common species of the order, which are involved in osteoarticular infections, are Rhizopus spp., Mucor spp., Apophysomyces spp., Cunninghamella bertholletiae, Lichtheimia corymbifera (formerly Absidia corymbifera) and Saksenaea vasiformis [2,3,11,31–52]. Among hyalohyphomycetes Scedosporium apiospermum (formerly Pseudallescheria boydii), Lomentospora (formerly Scedosporium) prolificans and Fusarium spp. (mainly Fusarium solani complex) have been found to be the most prevalent species after Mucorales [3,8]. Others include Acremonium spp. and Paecilomyces spp [2,3,53]. Finally, dematiaceous molds or phaeohyphomycetes include pathogens such as Bipolaris spp., Exserohilum spp., Myceliophthora thermophila [2,8,54].
Recent advances in the molecular diagnosis of mucormycosis
Published in Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics, 2018
Sanjeet S. Dadwal, Dimitrios P. Kontoyiannis
Mucormycosis is an infection caused by fungi from the Mucorales order [1], with Rhizopus spp., (Rhizopus oryzae and Rhizopus arrhizus are used equivalently in medical literature although the taxonomists favor the term R. arrhizus) the most common cause, followed by Mucor spp., Lichtheimia corymbifera [2], and less commonly by Cunninghamella spp., Rhizomucor spp., and Apophysomyces spp. The spectrum of disease caused by Mucormycetes is broad and includes rhinosinusitis, pneumonia, gastrointestinal tract involvement, dissemination to internal organs, and skin/soft tissue infection [3].