Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Apr 26, 2022; 10(12): 3893-3898
Published online Apr 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i12.3893
Cryptococcal antigen testing of lung tissue homogenate improves pulmonary cryptococcosis diagnosis: Two case reports
Wei-Yi Wang, Yu-Lu Zheng, Li-Bin Jiang
Wei-Yi Wang, Li-Bin Jiang, Department of Respiratory Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 310006, Zhejiang Province, China
Yu-Lu Zheng, Department of Respiratory Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Jiang LB performed the postoperative evaluation and diagnosis; Wang WY and Zheng YL reviewed the literature and contributed to manuscript drafting; Wang WY collected the medical data; all authors issued final approval for the submitted version.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Li-Bin Jiang, Doctor, MD, Chief Doctor, Department of Respiratory Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, No. 54 Youdian Road, Hangzhou 310006, Zhejiang Province, China. jkzjuedu@163.com
Received: September 1, 2021
Peer-review started: September 1, 2021
First decision: November 22, 2021
Revised: November 30, 2021
Accepted: March 7, 2022
Article in press: March 7, 2022
Published online: April 26, 2022
Processing time: 232 Days and 1.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Pulmonary cryptococcosis (PC) is often misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed owing to the absence of obvert symptoms, poor imaging specificity, and false-negative laboratory tests. We presented two cases of PC wherein serum cryptococcal antigen (CrAg) tests were negative; however, CrAg tests using lung tissue homogenate were positive. Our report aims to highlight the dilemma in diagnosing PC, as well as a novel adjunct in the diagnostic work-up for PC–cryptococcal antigen tests on lung tissue homogenates.