Surgical Treatment of Multifocal Pulmonary Mucormycosis

Mucormycosis is a devastating opportunistic fungal infection to which the immunosuppressed are particularly vulnerable. We report the case of a 60-year-old man who was found to have multifocal pulmonary mucormycosis 10 weeks after concomitant heart and kidney transplantation. Despite appropriate antifungal therapy, the infection progressed rapidly and soon involved critical pulmonary vasculature. He successfully underwent staged operative resection of his pulmonary mucormycosis without recurrence of infection. Although surgical debridement of pulmonary mucormycosis is typically reserved for localized disease, this case demonstrates that surgical intervention should be considered as an adjunct to antifungal therapy in multifocal disease. (C) 2018 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons