gms | German Medical Science

Mucormycosis is the third important fungal opportunist, with high mortality up to 85% if untreated. Different member of mucoralean family are able to cause this infection in immunocompromised patients. R. arrhizus (50% of cases) is the first pathogen followed by Lichtheimia and R. microsporus species. Patients with severe immune or metabolic impairment due to hemomalignancy, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation or uncontrolled ketoacidotic diabetes mellitus are the main risk group.

In our case study done in Ghaem hospital, Mashhad, Iran, we could isolate 9 strains from east part of the country. All patients showed to have a kind of underlying disease. Bone marrow transplantion, diabetic, addiction, haematological malignancies (CLL), pulmonary and respiratory disorders were the underlying factors in these cases. Majority of cases were diabetic. Six cases were female and 3 were male with the age ranging from 24 to 67. All isolated cases have been identified by morphology and later they have been sequenced. ITS sequencing showed these strains to be Rhizopus arrhizus. Mostly the treatment was done by surgery and amphotericin B was the main antifungal prescribed.

Mucormycosis are still rare, but their incidence is increasing in hosts with severe immune or metabolic impairment. In our study also seems that this infection is still rare in our country but due to high mortality, precaution is extremely advised specially in ketoacidotic diabetes mellitus.