Multiple Brain Abscesses Due to Phialemonium in a Renal Transplant Recipient: First Case Report in the Literature

Abstract

Fungal brain abscesses are a rare but serious complication in transplant recipients. Phialemonium organisms are rare causes of invasive mold infections. Here, we present the first case of a renal transplant recipient with multiple brain abscesses caused by Phialemonium infection A.

A 51-year-old female kidney transplant recipient was admitted with pneumonia of an unknown cause and treated with empiric intravenous antibiotics. Her treatment was uneventful, and she was discharged 1010 days later. After 5 days, she was readmitted with fever, cerebral palsy, and speech disorder. The patient had undergone living-donor renal transplant 7 months earlier. A cranial computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging were performed for a possible cerebro vascular pathology. The magnetic resonance imaging scan showed multiple brain abscesses located at the left parietal, frontal and occipital lobes; right parietal and occipital lobes; right basal ganglia; and left cerebellum. The patient received meropenem, linezolid, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim, and AmBisome for probable pathogenic infection, and immunosuppressive agents dosage was reduced increasingly immuno suppressed. We identified Phialemonium in cerebrospinal fluid culture. The patient received voriconazole 200 mg twice daily. Lesions could not be drained due to lack of capsula formation. The patient died on the 30th day of antifungal therapy. Phialemonium organisms, although a rare cause of fungal infections, are associated with a high mortality rate in immunocompromised patients.

To our knowledge, this is the first case report in the literature describing multiple brain abscesses due to Phialemonium in a transplant recipient. Clinicians recipient should be alert about these rare opportunistic fungi in the differential diagnosis of brain abscess, and bronchoscopy and broncho alveolar lavage are recommended for transplant patients when they are admitted with pneumonia exclude fungal infections.