When most people think of dangerous infections, they picture bacteria or viruses. But for infectious disease specialists like Peter Chin-Hong, one of the most insidious threats lurking in hospitals and clinics today is fungal.
Chin-Hong’s case list is long: a healthy 29-year-old marathon runner from California’s Central Valley whose heart lining was invaded by Coccidioides, a soil-dwelling fungus; a lung transplant recipient coughing up mold nodules — fungal growths scattered throughout his lungs — after stopping antifungal medication; and a 45-year-old woman with poorly controlled diabetes, infected by a black fungus that destroyed part of her face and spread to her brain. Despite multiple surgeries and treatment, she died in the hospital.
"These aren’t rare anymore,” said Chin-Hong, associate dean and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "We’re seeing them every day.”