Histoplasmin Sensitivity and Pulmonary Calcifications Among 1,000 Residents of the Isthmus of Panama

¹ Rangoon General Hospital, Rangoon, Burma.

Histoplasmin and tuberculin tests and chest roentgenograms were obtained on 1,000 patients at Colon Hospital, Panama Canal Zone. Seventy-seven reacted to histoplasmin only, 303 to tuberculin, culin, 310 to both antigens and 310 to neither. Intradermal sensitization increased in prevalence with age. Calcific pulmonary lesions were seen in 113 roentgenograms. Reactors to one or both antigens showed prevalences of calcified foci ranging from 11 to 17 per cent, whereas patients reacting to neither had a significantly lower rate (4.5 per cent). One histoplasmin reactor with bilateral pulmonary calcifications incidentally represented the second published instance of "Candida asthma."

Although no human case of histoplasmosis has been recognized in this region since 1906, the findings here reported were interpreted as suggestive circumstantial evidence in favor of the occurrence of non-fatal or "benign" histoplasmosis on the Isthmus of Panama.