[Epidemiological aspects of mycosis in the critical patient]

Fungemia, generally causes by Candida spp., is the most frequent deep mycoses in the critical patient and is many times clinically undistinguishable from bacterial septicemia. Less frequently, respiratory or disseminated mycosis produced by Aspergillus or other filamentous fungi, such as Scedosporium, Fusarium, Pneumocystis, Acremonium or zygomycetes have been described. Currently, invasive candidiasis is the fourth cause of nosocomial infection in Europe and the USA. Furthermore, in the SCOPE study, Candida is the third microorganism isolated from the blood culture in the ICU and the mortality that can be attributed to it reaches 25 %-38 %. Currently, the incidence of candidemia has been estimated to be 2 cases per every 1,000 admissions in the mixed critical units and 9.9 cases in the critical surgical units. On its part, invasive aspergillosis is observed in 1.25 % of the patients admitted to the ICU and mostly affects patients with chronic bronchopathy treated with glucocorticoids. It is considered as an indicator of bad prognosis and is associated to very high mortality rates (40 %-100 %).