HIV-Negative Case of Talaromyces marneffei Pulmonary Infection with Liver Cirrhosis in China: A Case Report and Literature Review

Abstract

Yu Liu,* Hongying Guo,* Wei Yuan, Ying Zou, Zhiping Qian, Xue Mei, Liujuan Ji, Jiefei Wang, Yuyi Zhang Department of Liver Intensive Care Unit, Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yuyi Zhang, Email [email protected]: Talaromyces marneffei (TM) is the third most prevalent opportunistic infection in HIV-positive patients after tuberculosis and cryptococcosis. However, such infection of non-HIV individuals has rarely been reported.Case Presentation: We describe a very rare case of a 52-year-old male who presented with a single space-occupying lesion on the right lung and was eventually diagnosed with pulmonary TM infection. The patient was HIV-negative and had liver cirrhosis with portal vein thrombosis. Lung tissue next-generation sequencing (NGS) revealed TM infection. We successfully treated the patient with voriconazole for 8 weeks and observed lesion absorption via subsequent CT. The patient consumed wild bamboo rats two months before admission. Mutations related to congenital immune deficiency were not detected by whole-exome sequencing.Conclusion: Early and timely diagnosis is critical for improving patient prognosis. NGS plays a vital role in the diagnosis of pulmonary TM infection in patients. To our knowledge, this is the first published case of pulmonary TM infection in an HIV-negative patient with liver cirrhosis.Keywords: Talaromyces marneffei, pulmonary infection, HIV-negative, PVT

Keywords

• talaromyces marneffei
• pulmonary infection
• hiv-negative
• pvt