Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Sep 16, 2023; 11(26): 6280-6288
Published online Sep 16, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i26.6280
Secondary pulmonary infection by Fusarium solani and Aspergillus niger during systemic steroid treatment for COVID-19: A case report
Daisuke Usuda, Masashi Kato, Yuto Sugawara, Runa Shimizu, Tomotari Inami, Shiho Tsuge, Riki Sakurai, Kenji Kawai, Shun Matsubara, Risa Tanaka, Makoto Suzuki, Shintaro Shimozawa, Yuta Hotchi, Ippei Osugi, Risa Katou, Sakurako Ito, Kentaro Mishima, Akihiko Kondo, Keiko Mizuno, Hiroki Takami, Takayuki Komatsu, Jiro Oba, Tomohisa Nomura, Manabu Sugita
Daisuke Usuda, Masashi Kato, Yuto Sugawara, Runa Shimizu, Tomotari Inami, Shiho Tsuge, Riki Sakurai, Kenji Kawai, Shun Matsubara, Risa Tanaka, Makoto Suzuki, Shintaro Shimozawa, Yuta Hotchi, Ippei Osugi, Risa Katou, Sakurako Ito, Kentaro Mishima, Akihiko Kondo, Keiko Mizuno, Hiroki Takami, Jiro Oba, Tomohisa Nomura, Manabu Sugita, Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Juntendo University Nerima Hospital, Nerima 177-8521, Tokyo, Japan
Takayuki Komatsu, Department of Sports Medicine, Juntendo University, Bunkyo 113-8421, Tokyo, Japan
Author contributions: Usuda D wrote the manuscript; Kato M, Sugawara Y, Shimizu R, Inami T, Tsuge S, Sakurai R, Kawai K, Matsubara S, Tanaka R, Suzuki M, Takano H, Hotchi Y, Shimozawa S, Tokunaga S, Osugi I, Katou R, Ito S, Mishima K, Kondo A, Mizuno K, Takami H, Komatsu T, Oba J, Nomura T, and Sugita M proofread and revised the manuscript; all authors approved the final version to be published.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from surety of the patient for publication of this case report and any accompanying images. Both written and verbal informed consent were obtained from surety of the patient for publication of this case report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors 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: Daisuke Usuda, MD, MSc, PhD, Associate Professor, Doctor, Senior Lecturer, Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Juntendo University Nerima Hospital, 3-1-10, Takanodai, Nerima 177-8521, Tokyo, Japan. d.usuda.qa@juntendo.ac.jp
Received: June 7, 2023
Peer-review started: June 7, 2023
First decision: August 4, 2023
Revised: August 8, 2023
Accepted: August 17, 2023
Article in press: August 17, 2023
Published online: September 16, 2023
Processing time: 92 Days and 20.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-associated invasive pulmonary aspergillosis presents a diagnostic challenge due to its non-specific clinical/imaging features, as well as the fact that the proposed clinically diagnostic algorithms do not necessarily apply to COVID-19 patients. In addition, disseminated Fusarium infection in an immunocompromised host is intractable, with a high likelihood of resulting mortality. To our knowledge, we experienced the first case of secondary pulmonary infection by Fusarium solani and Aspergillus niger during systemic steroid treatment for COVID-19. A cell-mediated immunodeficiency during COVID-19 treatment with a systemic steroid led to this opportunistic infection.