Pulmonary Ray Fungus Disease Clinical Aspects and Pathogenesis

¹ Chest Diseases and Radium Therapy Departments, Rothschild Hadassah University Hospital.

Five cases of pleuro-pulmonary ray-fungus disease are presente—two of actinomycosis, two of nocardiosis and one with genus undetermined. In two the clinicoradiological aspects were those of chronic suppurative pneumonitis. The others had acute and unresolved bronchopneumonia, unresolved middle lobe pneumonia and retrosternal fluid collection with pleural involvement. Three had severe periodontal infection, and in two of them the ray-fungus was detected in the sockets of extracted teeth.

In three cases the lung involvement probably occurred by way of bronchial aspiration and in the remaining cases by direct spread from the mediastinum and by hematogenous spread.

Antimicrobial drugs completely altered the clinical course and prognosis of the ray-fungus disease. In four patients treated with antibiotics from onset of the disease, no sinus was observed and all were cured.