CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Gastroenterology
This article is part of the Research TopicPerspectives in Fungal Pathogenesis: 2025View all 6 articles
First Global Case Report of Primary Small Intestinal Mucormycosis: A Fatal Condition Masquerading as Intestinal Obstruction
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, China
- 2Shandong Provincial Qianfoshan Hospital, Jinan, China
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Mucormycosis is a highly invasive and fatal opportunistic fungal infection caused by fungi belonging to the order Mucorales. Clinically, it is categorized into nasal-brain, pulmonary, cutaneous, and gastrointestinal forms. In contrast, gastrointestinal mucormycosis is extremely rare, often presenting with nonspecific abdominal pain, obstruction, or perforation, making preoperative diagnosis extremely challenging and resulting in a very poor prognosis. This paper presents a case of an elderly male patient who presented with "nonspecific abdominal pain with distension for 5 days."The postoperative pathology revealed small intestinal mucormycosis. We report the world's first case of primary mycetoma originating in the small intestine, presenting initially with intestinal obstruction. This study explores its clinical features, diagnostic challenges, treatment strategies, and prognosis to enhance clinicians' awareness of this condition.
Keywords: acute abdomen, Fungi, Intestinal Obstruction, Mucormycosis, small intestine
Received: 27 Oct 2025; Accepted: 14 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Shu, Li, Liu and Yu. 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:
Zheng Shu
Haihua Yu
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