Disseminated histoplasmosis occurring in infancy is a disease which usually terminates fatally. Only nine cases of survival in infants have been reported. Various forms of therapy, including supportive measures and the use of such drugs as ethyl vanillate and the diamidine group of compounds, have been used in the treatment of this disease.
It is the purpose of this paper to present the first case of disseminated histoplasmosis in an infant treated successfully with amphotericin B and the 10th reported case to survive with or without treatment. This infant, at the time of this writing, is living and well one year after his acute illness.
Report of Case
At the age of 3 months, this infant boy developed the typical clinical features of disseminated histoplasmosis with an insidious onset of fever, cough, anorexia, weight loss, and progressive hepatosplenomegaly. As his spleen enlarged his blood counts showed progressive effects of hypersplenism