Case report highlights invasive fungal infection in immunocompromised patients, suggesting the need for improved differential diagnosis.
During 2022-2024, six cases of invasive fungal infection occurred among immunocompromised patients at Marseille University Hospital, Marseille, France. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry initially identified Trichosporon inkin fungi. However, phylogenetic analysis of intergenic spacer region 1 and whole-genome sequences revealed the genetically distinct species T. austroamericanum. Analysis of core genome and mitogenome from 6 patient isolates and 1 environmental isolate revealed substantial genetic diversity among T. austroamericanum strains, indicating a polyclonal outbreak. Furthermore, the mitochondrial genome emerged as a potential marker for intraspecies differentiation, which potentially could aid in epidemiologic investigations. Identified in 2024 but potentially underestimated, T. austroamericanum has since been reported in case clusters from hospital settings in France, highlighting the need for accurate fungal identification and suggesting previously identified T. inkin cases should be re-evaluated for T. austroamericanum. Clinical T. austroamericanum is emerging in hospital settings and should be included in the differential diagnosis of fungal infections.
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Burel et al. (2025) studied this question.
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