M. Bianchi et al., The usefulness of blood culture in diagnosing HIV-related systemic mycoses: evaluation of a manual lysis centrifugation method, MED MYCOL, 38(1), 2000, pp. 77-80
The results of 5034 blood cultures, implementing a lysis-centrifugation met
hod with saponin, are summarized in this paper. Three hundred and twenty tw
o blood samples (6.3%) obtained from a pool of human immunodeficiency Virus
(HIV)-positive patients yielded fungi. Cryptococcus neoformans was isolate
d in 199 samples (3.95%), Histoplasma capsulatum in 95 (1.89%). Candida par
apsilosis in 12 (0.23%), C. albicans in 7 (0.13%), C, tropicalis in 2, C. k
rusei in 1, C. guillermondii in 1, and Prototheca wickerhamii in 4 (0.07%).
Blood cultures were positive for C. neoformans in 76.23% of patients havin
g a diagnosis of cryptococcosis and in 89.65% of those who had histoplasmos
is. The blood culture was the first means of confirming the diagnosis in 23
.8% of the patients with cryptococcosis and in 54% with histoplasmosis. In
the four patients in whom P. wickerhamii was isolated, a diagnosis of disse
minated protothecosis was not achieved by other findings. Catheter infectio
ns were responsible for the majority of recovered Candida spp.