Cortisone in coccidioidomycosis.

Cortisone administered orally, in low dosages for brief periods, promptly suppressed the allergic manifestations accompanying primary pulmonary coccidioidomycosis in 19 cases. There was no interference with the coccidioidin skin test reaction or with the usual serologic pattern. Dissemination of the disease as a sequel to the administration of cortisone and/or corticotropin has not been reported. A survey of physicians and of the known instances of disseminated coccidioidomycosis in Kern County failed to reveal any such episode. In none of the cases in which the authors gave cortisone in the presence of coccidioidomycosis was there any complication or undesirable sequel-specifically, no subsequent dissemination of the disease. The data presented are not to be interpreted as a therapeutic recommendation, but as a contribution to the information available concerning the effects of these drugs in infectious diseases.