Mucormycosis ; opportunistic infection ; oral and maxillofacial region ; immunocompromised patients
Abstract
Mucormycosis is an acute opportunistic infection that rarely occurred and involved patients with diabetes mellitus, immunosuppression or debilitating disease such as uremia, cirrhosis, malnutrition, hematologic malignancies and burns. Mucormycosis is produced by fungi of the class zygomycetes, order mucorales, genera mucor, Rhizopus, Abisida, Clinically, Mucormycosis may be classified into 6 main types of infection : Rhinocerebral type, gastrointestinal type, pulmonary and disseminated type, central nervous system type, burn wound type, endocarditis and vascular type, but, mucormycosis is very rare in the oral and maxillofacial area.
The purpose of this study is to identify general characteristics, treatment and prognosis of mucormycosis in the oral and maxilofacial regions.
We present 5 cases of mucormycosis in the oral and maxillofacial areas which are associated with underlying systemic diseases such as acute leukemia and diabetes mellitus.