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Introduction to Clinical Mycology

Part One



Fungal Infections: General Features

Slide 6

November 2011

What are fungal infections? What are some general features? First of all, these fungi may affect normal and immunocompromised patients. Many of them are chronic in duration. They last for years like ringworm or some things like that but in the immunocompromised patient, these can mean acute infections and progress very quickly to death. They are not transmitted from patient to patient. They are not susceptible to usual antimicrobial agents that we know about. However, they are susceptible to several groups of antifungal drugs called polyenes, azoles, and some others and the therapy for treating fungal infections is not easy for the patient, very difficult. The side effects are substantial and we need to make sure that we make an accurate diagnosis before these patients are placed on therapy. And again these infections may range from being just chronic type things to some that are acute and progress to rapid death. We need to be thinking about rapid reporting of results as we do our work.

Fungal Infections: General Features
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