The epidemiology of fusariosis in patients with haematological diseases

Fusariosis has been considered an emerging infection in patients with haema tological malignancies, In a multicentre retrospective study on filamentous fungi infections in patients with haematological diseases over a period of 10 years in Italy, fusariosis was documented in six patients from two of t he 14 centres with a 0.06% incidence in acute leukaemia. A literature searc h yielded 177 cases of Fusarium infections in haematological diseases and a cute leukaemia accounted for 71% of the underlying conditions. An increase from 0.5 to 3.8 cases per year was observed at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Cen ter of Houston in the periods 1975-85 and 1986-95 respectively. Conversely, only 5.1 and 6.3 cases per year have been reported in the periods 1981-90 and 1991-96, respectively, from the other centres in the world. Half of the cases have been observed in the USA, In Europe, most of the cases have bee n observed in France and Italy Invasive fusariosis is a rare complication i n haematological diseases, as its overall frequency does not seem to be sig nificantly increased within the last 20 years. However, its epidemiological distribution is not homogeneous and the possibility of local clusters of i nfections by this deadly pathogen should be carefully considered.