Cunninghamella bertholletiae Infection Associated with Deferoxamine Therapy

Myospherulosis: An Iatrogenic Complication of Antisyphilitic Treatment?

“…who died from disseminated mucormycosis caused by Rhizopus oryzae. An analogous case was reported recently [2], and deferoxamine therapy is proposed to be the risk factor for this zygomycete infection.…”

“…In 1977 in the USA, Kyriakos [2] described 16 cases, all identified as ear, nose, and throat (ENT) pathology. Only 6 cases have been documented in Europe, all in France.…”

Mucormycosis: association with deferoxamine therapy

“…In addition to patients with renal failure, patients with hematologic disorders, all of whom were treated with deferoxamine, have been reported with mucormycosis [3][4][5]14,16]. Including the current one, we have found 26 cases of mucormycosis associated with states of iron or aluminum excess treated with deferoxamine (Table I).…”

“…Chronic renal disease requiring maintenance hemodialysis was present in 20 of the 26 patients (77%) [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]15], whereas the remaining six patients had hema- tologic disorders requiring frequent transfusions [3][4][5]14,16]. Four patients, two with renal failure and two with hematologic disorders, had undergone splenectomy previously [5,7,10,14].…”

“…A new association, that of mucormycosis occurring in patients receiving deferoxamine therapy for iron or aluminum excess, has been reported with increasing frequency since 1986 [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Although this association has been strongly linked with chronic renal failure requiring hemodialysis, it is now clear that other conditions in which deferoxamine may be required (thalassemia, sideroblastic anemia, myelodysplasia) are also associated with mucormycosis [5,7,8,16].…”