Unusual cause of fever and diarrhea in a patient with AIDS - Penicillium marneffei infection

There has been an increase in the number of reports of opportunistic infections by P. marneffei, a dimorphic fungus, among AIDS patients in recent years (1-3). The majority of cases occurred in patients who had lived in (3-5) or traveled to (1) Southeast Asia. Indeed, penicilliosis is thought to be endemic in Asia and has become the third most common opportunistic infection in AIDS after extrapulmonary tuberculosis and cryptococcal meningitis in northern Thailand (3). We report a Chinese patient with AIDS who presented with penicillium colitis that responded to a course of amphotericin B and itraconazole.