Clinical and mycological laboratory in patients with histoplasmosis and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome

The results of the clinical laboratory techniques and the mycological studies were retrospectively evaluated in 15 male AIDS-related histoplasmosis patients, assisted at Ward 11 of the Hospital Muniz of Buenos Aires, from 1/1/98 to 12/31/03. Those patients evolved into an acute disseminated clinical form of histoplasmosis; 13 of them were discharged and the other 2 died, in spite of specific antifungal treatment. Among the most outstanding alterations revealed by the general laboratory studies, the presence of anaemia, leucocytopenia, increased sedimentation test and a rise in aminotransferases (GOT and GPT) and alkaline phosphatase levels can be highlighted. In spite of the liver impairment, total bilirubin levels, evaluated in 9 patients, remaired within the normal values in 6 of them (66.66 %). T CD4+ lymphocyte counts in peripheral blood were performed in 13115 patients and they showed a median of 15 cells/mu L (range 1 - 159). The microscopy applied on smears from samples obtained by scrapping of mucous and skin lesions together with the blood cultures performed with a modified lysis-centrifugation technique, were the most important methods for the initial diagnosis of histoplasmosis.