Prompt diagnosis and effective treatment of Trichosporon asahii catheter-related infection in non-immunocompromised neurosurgical patient.

Trichosporon asahii is a rare but emerging fungal pathogen that causes severe and life-threatening infections with high mortality rate, mostly in immunocompromised patients. It could be easily misdiagnosed due to lack of awareness, especially when invasive or deep-seated infections occur in non-immunocompromised patients, and inadequately treated since the clinical failures and high minimum inhibitory concentrations to some antifungal agents have been described. We present a case of T. asahii catheter-related infection in 66-year-old comatose patient with polytrauma, who was not immunodeficient, but was receiving broad-spectrum antibiotics for a long period. Due to prompt diagnosis and treatment which included catheter replacement and voriconazole, the patient successfully recovered from this infection. The aims of this case report were to highlight the importance of recognizing this otherwise colonizing yeast as potentially dangerous pathogen in non-immunocompromised patients with a long-term antibiotic therapy, and to emphasize the importance of the right therapeutic choice due to its resistance to certain antifungal agents.