Candida meningitis complicating Hodgkin's disease. Apparent recovery with amphotericin B therapy.

Abstract

MENINGITIS due to Candida albicans has rarely been reported in the literature and then only as a serious manifestation of systemic candidiasis. In 1933 Smith and Sano first reported a patient who died of disseminated moniliasis with meningeal involvement. The incidence of Candida infection, especially in debilitated patients with acute or chronic disease, has risen sharply with the increased usage of broad spectrum antibiotics and the steroid hormones. The superimposed infection usually presents as an oropharyngeal, entercolic, vulvovaginal, or bronchopulmonary involvement. Dissemination occurs on occasion with involvement of various systemic organs, the central nervous system, and at times the endocardium. Prior to the discovery of amphotericin B in 1955, the disseminated forms of mycotic disease were invariably fatal, and very few cases of apparent recovery of Candida meningitis treated with other agents have been reported in the literature. Results since then have been encouraging, especially in cases of systemic cryptococcosis