Monday, September 10, 2012

Fungal infections common among organ transplant patients

Fungal infections common among organ transplant patients
  • September 10, 2012
SAN FRANCISCO — Fungal infections occurred in 9% of transplant recipients, mostly within 6 months after transplantation, recent data suggest.

The data, presented at the 52nd Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, come from a prospective observational study that included all patients included in the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study from May 2008 to November 2011.

Christian van Delden, MD, of the University Hospital of Geneva, and colleagues included 1,053 patients who had at least 6 months of follow-up in the study. They identified 96 patients who had 125 fungal infections. The most fungal infections occurred in patients with kidney transplants — 68 infections. Among liver transplants, there were 25 infections; heart transplants, 17 infections; lung transplants, 13 infections; and kidney-pancreas transplants, two infections.
Forty-three of the fungal infections were mucocutaneous, and 35 occurred on the respiratory tract. For patients who received kidney transplants, the median time after transplantation to the occurrence of the fungal infection was 3.4 months. For heart transplants, the median time was 1.6 months, and for liver transplants, the median time was 1 month. For lung transplants, the median time was 1.9 months.

The most common infection was Candida albicans, which affected 28 kidney transplant patients, 17 liver transplant patients, six lung cancer patients and four heart transplant patients. Aspergillus fumigatus affected nine kidney transplant patients, four lung cancer patients, two heart transplant patients and one of each liver transplant and kidney-pancreas transplant patients.
Most of the patients with fungal infection (93%) were treated, and in 105 of the cases, a single antifungal treatment was used. Among the patients with a fungal infection, 27% died. In comparison, 8% of patients with a different type of infection died.

For more information:
Lecompte T. #T-343. Presented at: 52nd ICAAC; Sept. 9-12, 2012; San Francisco.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.

http://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/nosocomial-infections/news/online/%7BC1BA9D83-9E72-4705-B0BD-34DB2BEF78F5%7D/Fungal-infections-common-among-organ-transplant-patients

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