Introduction
1.1 Invasive fungal infections (IFI)
Fungi are eukaryotic organisms including yeasts and molds. Fungi are present in the environment and disseminate via cell budding or spore formation. Spores can be inhaled and cause primary lung diseases. Some yeasts (e.g.: Candida spp.) can also colonize the skin and gastro-intestinal tract and infect human by invasion of blood and tissues.
Some fungi cause endemic diseases (e.g. Histoplasma capsulatum), while others cause opportunistic infections in immunosuppressed patients (e.g. Candida spp., Aspergillus spp, Mucorales).
The evolution of modern medicine with the development of new treatments has improved the prognosis and life expectancy of many diseases. However, some treatments, such as anti-cancer chemotherapies and immunosuppressive drugs used in transplantation medicine, make the patients more susceptible to develop severe infectious diseases such as invasive fungal diseases [1]. The 12-month cumulative incidence of invasive fungal infections (IFI) in bone marrow and solid-organ transplant recipients is about 8% [2, 3]. Patients with hematologic cancers (e.g. acute leukemias) have a similar high risk to develop IFI during the neutropenic phase following myeloablative chemotherapy. Invasive aspergillosis is the most frequent IFI in these settings, followed by invasive candidiasis and mucormycosis.