Postoperative Antifungal Treatment of Pulmonary Cryptococcosis in Non-HIV-Infected and Non-Transplant-Recipient Patients: A Report of 110 Cases and Literature Review

Abstract

To explore the efficacy of postoperative antifungal treatment for preventing the recurrence of pulmonary cryptococcosis (PC) and occurrence of cryptococcal meningitis (CM), a retrospective study was conducted in 112 hospitalized PC patients with or without antifungal treatment following surgery. The treatment failure rate, PC recurrence rate, and CM incidence were compared. Additionally, the effectiveness of postoperative antifungal therapy was assessed by gathering and analyzing the published literature. The failure rate (P = .054) and recurrence rate (P = .178) were similar in the 2 groups, but the incidence of CM was lower in the group that received postoperative antifungal treatment (P = .039). This study did not show any difference in the PC recurrence rate or failure rate in the different treatment duration groups. Thus, a shorter antifungal treatment course of 2 months may be an optional treatment. In addition, upon review of the literature, no case of CM occurrence was reported among the 169 cases given postoperative antifungal treatment.