This Publication Is Searchable The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy Section 13. Infectious Diseases Chapter 158. Many yeasts and molds can cause opportunistic, even life-threatening infections in immunocompromised patients. They only rarely affect persons with intact host defenses.
Yeasts tend to cause fungemia as well as focal involvement of skin and other sites.
Trichosporon beigelii and Blastoschizomyces capitatus particularly affect neutropenic patients. Infants and debilitated adults receiving lipid-containing IV hyperalimentation infusions are susceptible to Malassezia furfur fungemia. P. marneffei skin lesions may resemble molluscum contagiosum. Especially in neutropenic patients, various environmental molds can cause focal vasculitic lesions mimicking invasive aspergillosis, including species of Fusarium and Scedosporium. Specific diagnosis requires culture and speciation and is crucial because not all of these organisms respond to any single antifungal drug.