[South American blastomycosis--a differential diagnosis to tuberculous meningitis].

BACKGROUND

South American blastomycosis is primarily a lung infection often complicated by multiorgan or intracranial disease.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

We describe the clinical and pathological findings of fatal cerebral blastomycosis occurring in a woman that immigrated to Norway from Brazil 23 years earlier.

RESULTS

The clinical symptoms together with the radiological findings of multiple cerebral lesions and thickening of the basal meninges were interpreted as cerebral tuberculosis. Examination of cerebral spinal fluid was inconclusive. A diagnosis of cerebral fungal infection was subsequently established by brain biopsy.

INTERPRETATION

This case history stresses the importance of confirming a clinical diagnosis by brain biopsy and extended investigation of the cerebrospinal fluid when intracranial lesions may have an infectious origin.