Cryptococcosis

Cryptococcosis General Information

The infection known as Cryptococcosis is caused by the fungus C. neoformans. This fungus is found all around the world. It can be located in soil that contains bird droppings or on unwashed raw fruits. You might be more familiar to the other names of this medical condition: European blastomycosis, cryptococcal meningitis, torulosis, Busse-Buschke disease, or torular meningitis. The disease was rare until a few years ago when the AIDS epidemic started. Very sensitive to Cryptococcosis are those people who follow a long-term therapy based on drugs that suppress the immune system, such as chemo drugs or corticosteroids, those who have sarcoidosis, Hodgkin’s disease or other lymphomas. For them, this fungal infection can be really life-threatening. In healthy individuals, this illness is less common. This disorder usually attacks the meninges (the tissues that cover the spinal cord and the brain), provoking meningitis (an inflammation of these membranes that is very fatal), the skin and the lungs, but some other organs may also be involved because this disease spreads very frequently. A person gets infected with the Cryptococcus neoformans by inhaling it. In the past 15 years the prevalence of this infection has been increasing for numerous reasons, and one of them is the increased incidence of patients who use immunosuppressive drugs and of patients who are suffering from AIDS. The infections caused by fungus in humans can be divided in three categories: cryptococcal meningitis, cutaneous or wound Cryptococcosis and cryptococcal pulmonary. Many studies showed that an infection of this kind is more dangerous for men than for women. The average age of sick patients is around 45 years old.

Cryptococcosis Symptoms

After the fungus enters the body and reaches the lungs, the immune system can heal the organism without any medical treatment. Thanks to the normal functioning of the immune system the person will not develop any symptoms or complications and he or she can not infect any healthy individuals. But these cases of asymptomatic patients are generally rare because in many cases the immune system is not very strong and it enables the disorder to remain in the lungs or to spread throughout the body. Specialists use to say about Cryptococcosis that is an opportunistic disease. More than 5% of the patients with AIDS get this fungal infection. In case the microorganism is not killed by the body, it will grow and form nodules in the lungs (these nodules can only be seen on X-rays of the chest areas). The early stages of this affection are characterized by symptoms similar to those of any other respiratory infection, for example a dry cough. This is mainly the cause why Cryptococcosis is not always diagnosed in time, fact that allows various complications to develop. The most common symptoms and signs, specific for this health disorder are: pain felt in the abdominal area or in the chest, tiredness, headache, abdominal fullness felt prematurely after eating, swollen abdomen, nausea and vomiting, loss of the appetite, excessive and unusual sweating over the night, weakness, pain felt along the path of a nerve, bleeding, weight loss, tingling and numbness, confusion, ecchymoses (bruises), petechiae (skin rashes, pinpoint red marks), swollen glands, fever, pain, diplopia (double, blurred vision), dizziness,  abnormal gait, tenderness of the sternum (bone of the breast), encephalitis and irritability.

Cryptococcosis Treatment