The Influence of Cortisone on Experimental Fungus Infections in Mice*

Abstract

The administration of adrenal glucocorticoids is associated with enhancement of many experimental infections. The pertinent studies have been reviewed comprehensively by Kass and Finland (1). Most experiments in which fungi were used as the infecting microorganism have also demonstrated an increase in the severity of infection when adrenal hormones were injected prior to or concomitantly with the fungus (2-9). A few studies, however, showed no augmentation of mycotic disease following the administration of steroids (3, 10-12).The investigations on fungi have not provided information as to the relative propensity of the various species to disseminate under the influence of steroids, nor have they offered definitive data on the mechanisms of enhancement or on the tissue localization of increased infection.

Candida albicans—do mycelia matter?

“…Progressive infection is observed only in the kidney [8,14] and this progression is associated with passage of the fungus through the wall of both cortical and medullary tubules or glomerular tufts into the lumen of the nephrons. Growth in this apparently protected site is not associated with the inflammatory response which is so prominent in the interstitium [8]. After forming long pseudohyphae within the renal tubular lumen, the fungus penetrates back into the renal parenchyma.…”

Evaluation of industrial yeasts for pathogenicity

“…Many different animal models have been used to compare the pathogenic potential of medically important yeasts, e.g., C. albicans and Cryptoeoccus neoformans (1,4,7), but no procedure for evaluating the potential for human pathogenicity of industrial yeasts has been proposed, nor is information available on the survival of industrial yeasts in animals. This paper compares the potential for pathogenicity of industrial yeasts for mice with that of established pathogens.…”

Antiinfektive medikamentöse Therapie am Auge - Teil 3: Mykotische Infektionen

“…Andererseits führt der langwierige Verlauf einer Keratomykose oft zu einer erheblichen Vaskularisation der Hornhaut, die eine optische Rehabilitation auch mittels einer Keratoplastik mindestens erheblich erschwert, wenn nicht gar unmöglich macht. [35,40,44,48,49,57,67], so dass eine primäre Immunsuppression induziert wurde mit der Folge einer vermehrten Pilzausbreitung. In einer umfangreichen Studie unserer Arbeitsgruppe konnten wir zeigen, dass neun Tage post infectionem topisches Prednisolon zur topischen Fluconazolgabe den Verlauf der experimentellen Candida-Keratomykose günstig beeinflusst [84].…”