COVID-19-ASSOCIATED MUCORMYCOSIS: A CASE REVIEW ON INFECTION, DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

Abstract

The beginning of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (Coronavirus type II that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome), brought with it a variety of medical complications, including reports of coinfections with mucormycosis in patients with COVID-19 (Coronavirus 2019) had an increase in its frequency in the last months of 2021, especially alerting the populations of countries on the Asian continent, these being India and Iran. However, little is known about the behavior of this disease, regarding the characteristics of the patients, its prevalence and, above all, the laboratory diagnosis in America. Through a systematic review, where the results were filtered, using the MeSH terms, according to the search strategy, 37 case reports of mucormycosis associated with COVID-19 (CAM) were found, distributed in Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Honduras, Colombia, Paraguay and Argentina. 78.9% of these cases belonged to the male gender and 21.1% to the female gender, within these cases an age range between 30 and 86 years was reported. The most common underlying condition found in CAM cases was diabetes mellitus (DM), indicating the possible existence of an association that should be studied. The latter has a role in the immune regulation of patients, which can generate a perfect scenario for the development and proliferation of mucormycosis in COVID-19 patients