[Morphology of severe mycoses. Role of the pathologist in the diagnosis].
Mycoses are diseases caused by fungi. To be regarded as pathogenic, a fungus has to be able to complete a number of steps in order to initiate infection. Although culture remains the gold standard to diagnose the causative agent, presumptive identification of these fungi in histologic slides is of great value because invasion is only demonstrated in tissue sections. When culture is not available, histopathologic examination may be the sole source of information about the nature of the infection. To make a diagnosis, the pathologist needs to be familiar with the morphologic appearance of the different types of fungi, and has also to be aware of the limitations in their identification. The purpose of this work is to review the current problems on this subject, specially referring to the most frequent severe mycoses of our environment.
Puras-Gil
A M
AM
Servico de Anatomía Patológica, Hospital universitario Virgen del Camino, Irunlarrea, 4- 31008 Pamplona, España.
Montes-Díaz
M
M
Fernández-Seara
P
P
López-Cousillas
A
A