Abstract
This paper presents the case of a 75-year-old Brazilian man who developed inflammatory skin lesions with nodules and ulcerations on the right forearm after an injury caused by handling barbed-wire and Eucalyptus spp. logs. Histopathological assessment of the lesions showed granulomatous processes with yeasts similar to Cryptococcus spp. Tissue fragments yielded yeasts when cultured that were identified as Cryptococcus gattii VGII through biochemical reactions and URA5-RFLP genotype. No evidence of systemic involvement or any underlying immunosuppressive diseases were identified, which supported the diagnosis of primary cutaneous cryptococcosis. After 5 months on therapy with high fluconazole doses, the skin lesions had fully healed.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dra Lúcia Kioko Hasimoto e Souza, Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública da Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil, for kindly providing the C. neoformans and C. gattii reference strains and to Mrs Ângela Azôr for the technical assistance.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
This paper was first published online on Early Online on 1 November 2010.