[Candida albicans spondylitis: successful treatment with fluconazole. 2 case reports].

Two patients suffering from candida albicans spondylitis in the lumbar spine are reported. Both had been operated on because of malignancy. One patient's clinical course was complicated by candida septicemia, and later on, serious candida endophthalmia developed. Conventional X-rays, combined with technetium scintigraphy, showed inflammatory destruction of the end plates of neighbouring vertebrae. Computerized tomography was done in the second patient, when an abscess was detected on both sides in the psoas muscle. Consecutively, operative removal and a spondylodesis were performed. Candida albicans could be isolated from removed discal material. Treatment by fluconazole for six months, in the first case in the beginning also by amphotericin B, lead to the healing of fungal spondylitis, accompanied by partial osseous consolidation.