3 ms·
I've only diagnosed one case of coccidioidomycosis, and it was on a small tropical island. Black male in his early 20s. Looked for all the world like a cutaneou
by killjoywashere 3y ago
I've only diagnosed one case of coccidioidomycosis, and it was on a small tropical island. Black male in his early 20s. Looked for all the world like a cutaneous lymphoma. Biopsy was full of granulomas and I got a fungal stain reflexively. We were all flabbergasted. Turns out the young man was from the Central Valley.
I note the patient's sex and race because it seems this particular group either has a particular tolerance for the disease until it's metastatic, or has a particularly aggressive reaction to metastatic disease. In either case, my ID colleagues tell me that when they present, they seem to present with markedly worse systemic disease. Don't take my word for it, here's the Mayo Clinic, reviewing many other studies over decades:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3012635/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3012635/
- NegativeK 3y agoA veterinarian I know has diagnosed multiple patients with valley fever, including one whose owner responded with "Oh, I had that!" The most disturbing was the case where the dog's bones were very, very heavily eroded away -- to the extent that to me, a layperson, the bones weren't really recognizable anymore. As usual, the dog and one of the owners were recreating on trails near a dry lake bed.