{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T17:47:56Z","timestamp":1790704076192,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":11,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,8]],"date-time":"2022-04-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1649376000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Robert C. Hickey chair endowment","award":["N\/a"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["N\/a"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JoF"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The cultural recovery of Mucorales from hyphae-laden tissue is poor, and the clinical implications of culture positivity are scarcely studied. Therefore, we compared clinical and histopathological characteristics of culture-positive and culture-negative histology-proven pulmonary mucormycosis cases among cancer patients. Histology specimens were blindly reviewed by a thoracic pathologist and graded on four histopathologic features: hyphal quantity, tissue necrosis, tissue invasion, and vascular invasion. Twenty cases with a corresponding fungal culture were identified; five were culture-positive, and fifteen were culture-negative. Although no statistically significant differences were found, culture-positive patients were more likely to exhibit a high burden of necrosis and have a high burden of hyphae but tended to have less vascular invasion than culture-negative patients. In terms of clinical characteristics, culture-positive patients were more likely to have acute myeloid leukemia (60% vs. 27%, p = 0.19), a history of hematopoietic cell transplant (80% vs. 53%, p = 0.31), severe lymphopenia (absolute lymphocyte count \u2264 500\/\u00b5L, 100% vs. 73%, p = 0.36), and monocytopenia (absolute monocyte count \u2264100\/\u00b5L, 60% vs. 20%, p = 0.11). Forty-two-day all-cause mortality was comparable between culture-positive and culture-negative patients (60% and 53%, p = 0.80). This pilot study represents the first comprehensive histopathological scoring method to examine the relationship between histopathologic features, culture positivity, and clinical features of pulmonary mucormycosis.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jof8040380","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,8]],"date-time":"2022-04-08T12:11:14Z","timestamp":1649419874000},"page":"380","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Taking a Closer Look: Clinical and Histopathological Characteristics of Culture-Positive versus Culture-Negative Pulmonary Mucormycosis"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"8","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7513-6522","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Amy","family":"Spallone","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Employee Health, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Cesar A.","family":"Moran","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pathology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7784-7256","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sebastian","family":"Wurster","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Employee Health, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dierdre B.","family":"Axell-House","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Infectious Diseases, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8051-2940","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dimitrios P.","family":"Kontoyiannis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Employee Health, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Axell-House, D.B., Wurster, S., Jiang, Y., Kyvernitakis, A., Lewis, R.E., Tarrand, J.J., Raad, I.I., and Kontoyiannis, D.P. (2021). Breakthrough Mucormycosis Developing on Mucorales-Active Antifungals Portrays a Poor Prognosis in Patients with Hematologic Cancer. J. Fungi, 7.","DOI":"10.3390\/jof7030217"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"851","DOI":"10.1086\/313803","article-title":"Zygomycosis in the 1990s in a tertiary-care cancer center","volume":"30","author":"Kontoyiannis","year":"2000","journal-title":"Clin. Infect. Dis. Off. Publ. Infect. Dis. Soc. Am."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"208","DOI":"10.1309\/7KU5XWURYM0151YN","article-title":"Increased culture recovery of Zygomycetes under physiologic temperature conditions","volume":"127","author":"Kontoyiannis","year":"2007","journal-title":"Am. J. Clin. 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Dis., ciab1066.","DOI":"10.1093\/cid\/ciab1066"}],"container-title":["Journal of Fungi"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2309-608X\/8\/4\/380\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T22:50:50Z","timestamp":1760136650000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2309-608X\/8\/4\/380"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,8]]},"references-count":11,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,4]]}},"alternative-id":["jof8040380"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/jof8040380","relation":{"has-preprint":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.20944\/preprints202203.0162.v1","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["2309-608X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2309-608X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,8]]}}}