A patient in ICU with an indwelling medical device is presenting with invasive infection symptoms, specifically fever and chills. They have been on a course of antibiotics that has not alleviated the condition. The doctor’s start the patient on a course of voriconazole - a typical front line antifungal for invasive infections. They also take a blood sample to confirm the infectious agent. Below are what the cultures come back as, as well as what cells taken from this plate look like under the microscope. Left: Results of a blood culture on blood agar plate after incubation at 37°C for 2 days.Right: Cells from the agar plate under the microscope - scale bar = 5 µm. The lab determined that a Candida species was causing this infection. Based on what you know about fungal pathogen morphology, why do you think the
A patient in ICU with an indwelling medical device is presenting with invasive infection symptoms, specifically fever and chills. They have been on a course of antibiotics that has not alleviated the condition. The doctor’s start the patient on a course of voriconazole - a typical front line antifungal for invasive infections. They also take a blood sample to confirm the infectious agent. Below are what the cultures come back as, as well as what cells taken from this plate look like under the microscope. Left: Results of a blood culture on blood agar plate after incubation at 37°C for 2 days.Right: Cells from the agar plate under the microscope - scale bar = 5 µm.
The lab determined that a Candida species was causing this infection. Based on what you know about fungal pathogen morphology, why do you think the lab ruled out Aspergillus or Cryptococcus infection?
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