Doganis Dimitrios, Baka Margarita, Pourtsidis Apostolos, Bouhoutsou Despina, Varvoutsi Maria, Stamos Georgios, Anastasiou Nikolaos, Androulakakis Emmanouel, Vasilatou-Kosmidis Helen
Oncology Department, Children's Hospital Aglaia Kyriakou, Athens, Greece.
Pediatr Hematol Oncol. 2007 Dec;24(8):631-8. doi: 10.1080/08880010701620988.
The authors report on a 14-year-old adolescent boy suffering of Hodgkin disease in remission, who developed autoimmune anemia and thrombopenia. He was treated with high-dose steroids and he developed serious invasive lung aspergillosis, which was treated with antifungal agents and surgical intervention. Children suffering from cancer are prone to develop systemic fungal infections secondary to the severe immunosuppression caused by the disease itself and the antineoplastic therapy. Intravenous antifungal medications and, when feasible, surgery are used for treatment of pulmonary aspergillosis. Factors related to better outcome are early diagnosis, remission of underlying disease, aggressive antifungal therapy, and recovery from neutropenia.
