Rhinocerebral zygomycosis following bone marrow transplantation in chronic myelogenous leukaemia. Report of a case and review of the literature.

We report on a man suffering from chronic myelogenous leukaemia treated by allogeneic bone marrow transplantation who, in the late post-transplantation phase, developed a hyperacute fatal invasive rhinocerebral zygomycosis. The origin of the ascending infection was the sinus sphenoidalis from which fungal hyphae spread to the central nervous system via the skull and the dura mater. The first symptoms of this severe infection were cerebral convulsions and a bilateral total amaurosis. The isolation of the pathogen from post mortem tissue was not successful. The present case is compared with previous reports of zygomycoses after bone marrow transplantation.