Two cases of disseminated mucormycosis in patients with hematological malignancies and literature review

Two cases of disseminated mucormycosis in patients with underlying hematolo gical. disease are described. Both patients presented with fever and pulmon ary infiltrates which did not respond to empirical treatment with broad-spe ctrum antibiotics and antifungal agents, and in both patients there was rap id progression with a fatal outcome. All cultures were negative and the dia gnosis was made postmortem. A review of the literature revealed only three recent reports of successful treatment of disseminated mucormycosis. Surviv al correlated with control of the underlying disease and early diagnosis ba sed on histological examination of biopsy specimens from suspected lesions. Therapy consisted of surgical debridement and amphotericin B. Standard the rapeutic schedules need to be defined for this infection.