12-day-old premature-born baby dies of Candida

[Guest guest]

Since we've been discussing candida here lately, I thought I'd post

this here too. The pic associated with this case report shows the

yeast form of candida infecting blood cells and the hyphal form

hanging out in the blood like some kind of mutant blood cell. It's in

color (stained) too.

A male infant was born at a gestational age of 26 weeks and weighed

830g. He required intubation and was transferred to the neonatal

intensive care unit. His treatment included assisted ventilation,

surfactant, catheterization of the umbilical artery and vein,

intravenous fluids, and broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents. On the

fifth postnatal day, the infant became clinically unstable, and a

review of his peripheral-blood smear showed yeast forms inside the

neutrophils and hyphae. Treatment with amphotericin B was begun. Two

days later Candida albicans grew in blood cultures. The condition of

the infant worsened, with the development of disseminated

intravascular coagulation, grade 2 intraventricular hemorrhage, and

pulmonary hemorrhage, and he died on his 12th day of life.

Erez Nadir, MD, Miriam Kaufshtein, M.Sc., " Images in Clinical

Medicine: Candida albicans in a Peripheral-Blood Smear, " _The New

England Journal of Medicine_, Sept. 8, 2005.

If anyone wants the picture that came with this brief case note I can

email you the .pdf if you ask me offlist.

Chris

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