Acute interstitial pneumonia due to pulmonary mycosis. Clinical case presentation.

Abstract

Introduction: Interstitial pneumonia is an acute and rapidly progressive lung disease that often leads to respiratory failure and respiratory distress syndrome. Pulmonary mycosis is an infection that can behave like a chronic lung disease or an invasive fungal infection, mainly in immunocompromised patients. Objective: the general objective is to report a clinical case of a patient with acute interstitial pneumonia due to pulmonary mycosis, treated in the intensive care unit, as well as to describe its diagnosis, treatment and evolution.

Materials and methods: A descriptive study was carried out; With presentation of a clinical case, relevant aspects of acute interstitial pneumonia due to pulmonary mycosis, authorization was requested from the teaching and research department of the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo hospital, for the review of the clinical history, images, and data publication.

Clinical case: the case of a 41-year-old male patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is presented, who was admitted to the intensive care unit due to neurological deterioration and who developed pulmonary sepsis due to Candida tropicalis, hemodynamically unstable with outcome not favorable.

Discussion: Pulmonary fungal infections are associated with high morbidity and mortality. The risk factors that favor the presence of invasive pulmonary mycosis are: structural lung damage, immunological compromise such as immunodeficiency, patients in critical condition and with haematological tumors, the latter group being the most at risk. 

Conclusion: Candida tropicalis is a fungus rarely reported as a cause of pneumonia. The importance of the case presented lies in the fact that this was the causative agent of infection, evidencing invasive candidiasis, characteristic of biofilm-forming candida species, having a more serious course than other species, since its diagnosis and treatment in due time they are vital.