CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Pulmonary Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1590011
Liquid-based cytology diagnosis of pulmonary mucormycosis
Provisionally accepted
- Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China
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Mucormycosis is an infrequent yet life-threatening opportunistic fungal infection, typically secondary to diabetic ketoacidosis. Owing to its nonspecific clinical presentation and auxiliary test findings, timely diagnosis remains difficult. While fungal culture, direct smear, histopathological biopsy, and molecular diagnostic techniques are available, cytological evaluation and histopathological biopsy remain the principal modalities in clinical settings. Notably, cytological identification of mucorales remains rare.Case Presentation: A 41-year-old male presented with a 20-day history of productive cough and fever, accompanied by a recent onset of hemoptysis. His medical history included type 2 diabetes mellitus. Diagnostic confirmation of mucormycosis was achieved through conventional cytological smear, liquid-based cytology, cell block preparation, tissue biopsy, and specialized staining techniques. Pulmonary mucormycosis was ultimately diagnosed.This report documents a case of pulmonary mucormycosis identified via conventional cytological smear, liquid-based cytology, and cell block preparation. Liquid-based cytology and cell block techniques offered a non-invasive and more expedient approach, highlighting their value in the early identification and intervention of mucormycosis.
Keywords: cytology, Liquid based cytology, Mucormycosis, diagnosis, differential diagnosis
Received: 08 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Luo, Tian, Xu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shuai Luo, Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China
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