Mold infections in immunosuppressed individuals

Nishma Singhal, MD, is an associate professor of medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences and assistant dean for Continuing Health Sciences Education at McMaster University.

When to include a fungal infection in the differential diagnosis in an immunosuppressed patient?

The most common place where we see invasive mold infections is in patients with febrile neutropenia or patients with chemotherapy-induced neutropenia. The other population that we see it is sometimes in solid organ transplant—especially lung transplant—patients, and very occasionally in patients who are severely immunosuppressed with HIV or other T-cell deficiencies.