Gastrointestinal Talaromyces marneffei infection in a man with AIDS: A case report

Reports of intestinal Talaromyces marneffei infection have increased year by year, but those of gastric infection remain rare. Here, we report disseminated talaromycosis with gastric and intestinal ulcers in an AIDS patient who was treated by antifungal agents and a proton pump inhibitor and achieved a satisfactory outcome.

A 49-year-old man developed a gastrointestinal illness with main abdominal distension, poor appetite and a positive HIV infection to our AIDS clinical treatment center.

Electronic gastrointestinal endoscopy showed that the patient had multiple ulcers in the gastric angle, gastric antrum and large intestine. Gastric Helicobacter pylori infection was ruled out by paraulcerative histopathological analysis and a C14 urea breath test. The diagnosis was confirmed by gastroenteroscopic biopsy and metagenomic next-generation sequencing of gastric ulcer tissue.

Symptomatic and supportive treatments [a proton pump inhibitor and gastrointestinal motility promotion] were initiated. The patient was prescribed sequential antifungal therapy with amphotericin B (0.5 mg/kg·d, 2 weeks) and itraconazole (200 mg, q12h, 10 weeks), and then followed with itraconazole for long-term secondary prevention (200 mg, qd).

The combined use of antifungal agents and a proton pump inhibitor improved the patient's condition, and he was discharged home 20 days later. He had no gastrointestinal symptom during 1 year of telephone-based follow-up.

In endemic areas, clinicians should be alert to the possibility of Talaromyces marneffei infection presenting with gastric ulcers in patients with AIDS, after excluding Helicobacter pylori infection.