Zygomycosis and the Joplin Tornado

Diagnosis of Zygomycosis

July 2011

Well, the clinical diagnosis of Zygomycosis is based on a number of things. One are the clinical signs, obvious what kinds of diseases it causes and what the clinician suspects. A biopsy is probably the preferred means of making a diagnosis because it needs to come from a sterile sight and you need to see tissue invasion by pauciseptate hyphae. You can do a direct microscopic examination of sterile material if you get an abscess or something that you know is sterile and you happen to see those hyphae in there that is fine to be able to recognize those hyphae in there, those pauciseptate hyphae. We do have PCR for rapid detection of some of the Zygomycetes that cannot separate all of those but is available. And then we also have means to identify some of these unusual Zygomycetes by nucleic acid sequencing. And Apophysomyces can be identified by nucleic acid sequencing as well as by morphology.

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Diagnosis of Zygomycosis

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Jump to section:

• Introduction
• Tragedy in Joplin
• Unsuspected Fungal Infection Infects Some Joplin Residents
• Zygomycosis
• The Zygomycetes
• The Zygomycetes
• Pauciseptate Hyphae
• Zygomycetes: Basic Structures
• Basic Structures
• Rhizopus Species
• Lichtheimia (Absidia) Species
• Lichtheimia Species
• Mucor Species
• Cunninghamella Species
• Apophysomyces elegans
• Apophysomyces elegans
• Apophysomyces elegans
• Apophysomyces elegans
• Apophysomyces elegans
• Diagnosis of Zygomycosis
• Large Pauciseptate Hyphae—H&E Stain
• Unstained Hyphal Fragment On GMS-Stained Tissue
• Vascular Invasion By Hyphae
• Large Pauciseptate Hyphae—Calcofluor White
• Video Credits
• Questions?