title: Postpartum cryptococcal pulmonary lesion incidentally discovered during a pulmonary-embolism evaluation of a 28-year-old caucasian woman.
abstract: We report a case of localized pulmonary cryptococcal infection in a 28-year-old Caucasian woman who was 1 month postpartum at the time of her arrival at the hospital. The patient reported right-side chest pain; on further work up, she was found to have an incidental pulmonary lesion of the left lower lung lobe. Surgical pathology examination and microbiology studies revealed localized cryptococcal infection. Cases of cryptococcal pneumonia in pregnant women and in the postpartum period have been described in the literature. However, cryptococcal infections are usually associated with various immunocompromised states, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Because pregnancy is associated with physiological immunosuppression, cryptococcal pneumonia should be considered in pregnant women, or women in the postpartum period, who have respiratory symptoms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Minnesota, and alesia@umn.edu.
authors.forename: Alesia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kaplan
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical and Anatomic Pathology, Fairview Southdale Hospital, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Daniel G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Berntson
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Minnesota, and.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ferrieri
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003453:Cryptococcosis / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D049590:Postpartum Period; D011247:Pregnancy; D011655:Pulmonary Embolism / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000382:microbiology*
keywords: Cryptococcus neoformans; postpartum; pregnancy