Mucorales PCR in blood as an early marker of invasive gastrointestinal mucormycosis might decrease the delay in treatment: A case report

Robina Aerts; Greet De Vlieger; Yves Debaveye; Halit Topal; Gert De Hertogh; Katrien Lagrou; Johan Maertens

doi:10.1016/j.mmcr.2022.12.001

Mucorales PCR in blood as an early marker of invasive gastrointestinal mucormycosis might decrease the delay in treatment: A case report

Med Mycol Case Rep. 2022 Dec 15:39:8-12. doi: 10.1016/j.mmcr.2022.12.001. eCollection 2023 Mar.

Authors

Robina Aerts^{1

2}, Greet De Vlieger^{3

4}, Yves Debaveye^{3

4}, Halit Topal⁵, Gert De Hertogh⁶, Katrien Lagrou^{2

7}, Johan Maertens^{2

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
² Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
³ Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁴ Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Laboratory of Intensive Care Medicine, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁵ Department of Visceral Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁶ Department of Pathology, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁷ Department of Laboratory Medicine, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁸ Department of Hematology, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Abstract

We describe the fatal case of a patient with gastric perforation due to ischemia and necrosis of the stomach secondary to generalized vascular thrombosis following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Histopathological examination of the resected stomach, spleen and omentum unexpectedly showed fungal hyphae suggestive of invasive mucormycosis. We retrospectively performed Mucorales PCR (MucorGenius®, PathoNostics, Maastricht, The Netherlands) in blood and tissue samples of this patient. The PCR was positive 16 days before time of death and 9 days before abdominal pain.

Keywords: Critically ill patient; Invasive mould infections; Mucorales PCR; Mucormycosis; Opportunistic infections.

Publication types

Case Reports