Trichosporon species infection in bone marrow transplanted patients.

Trichosporon species are emerging as opportunistic agents that cause systemic diseases in immunocompromised patients. Patients undergoing bone marrow transplant are submitted to intense and prolonged periods of neutropenia and consequently to several risk factors to fungal infections as the use of broad spectrum antibiotics and invasive devices. Two cases of fungal infections caused by Trichosporon asahii var. asahii and T. inkin in patients with bone marrow transplant are described T. asahii var. asahii was responsible for fungemia and the identification of this microorganism was later performed. T. inkin caused vascular accesses infection and was recovered from an implanted Hickman-Broviac catheter. Both patients were under oral fluconazole prophylaxis. The patient with systemic infection died despite the therapy with amphotericin B and the patient with catheter-related infection recovered from the fungal infection after catheter removal. Difficulties in the identification of this microorganism lead to delays in treatment and post-mortem diagnosis.