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Subcutaneous abscess due to the basidiomycete Phellinus mori in a patient with chronic granulomatous disease

Infection volume 43, pages 371–375 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD), a primary immunodeficiency caused by impaired phagocyte killing of intracellular pathogens, is characterized by recurrent, life-threatening, bacterial and fungal infections. As a result of improvements in microbiologic culture and identification techniques, a number of unique filamentous fungi have been reported as significant pathogens in patients with CGD. We report a case of subcutaneous basidiomycete Phellinus mori infection in a patient with CGD. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of human infection by this fungus. The causative fungus was identified on the basis of its morphological characteristics and nucleotide sequence on the internal transcribed spacer region of the ribosomal RNA gene. This is the fifth case report of filamentous basidiomycetes infecting a patient with CGD; all of these cases have been caused by Phellinus species. We highlight the importance of recognizing filamentous basidiomycetes Phellinus species as possible agents of non-Aspergillus fungal infections in patients with CGD.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grand Numbers 26860791.

Conflict of interest

We declare no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Shinshu University School of Medicine, 3-1-1, Asahi, Matsumoto, 390-8621, Japan

    T. Shigemura, Y. Nakazawa, N. Kobayashi & K. Koike

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Nagano Red Cross Hospital, Nagano, Japan

    Y. Amano & A. Sudo

  3. Department of Pathology, Nagano Red Cross Hospital, Nagano, Japan

    M. Watanabe

  4. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Shinshu University Hospital, Matsumoto, Japan

    M. Kobayashi

  5. Department of Infection and Host Defense, Graduate School of Medicine, Shinshu University, Matsumoto, Japan

    K. Agematsu

  6. Department of Microbiology, Dokkyo Medical University School of Medicine, Tochigi, Japan

    K. Nishimura

Authors
  1. T. Shigemura
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  2. Y. Nakazawa
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  3. Y. Amano
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  4. A. Sudo
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  5. M. Watanabe
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  6. M. Kobayashi
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  7. N. Kobayashi
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  8. K. Koike
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  9. K. Agematsu
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  10. K. Nishimura
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Y. Nakazawa.

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Shigemura, T., Nakazawa, Y., Amano, Y. et al. Subcutaneous abscess due to the basidiomycete Phellinus mori in a patient with chronic granulomatous disease. Infection 43, 371–375 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-015-0724-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-015-0724-7

Keywords

  • Chronic granulomatous disease
  • Phellinus mori
  • Filamentous basidiomycete
  • Non-Aspergillus fungal infection