A Case of Rhinocerebral Mucormycosis in a Diabetic Woman

ABSTRACT

We report a case of rhinocerebral mucormycosis in a 63-year-old female with a 1-year history of poorly controlled diabetes mellitus. She had black necrotic ulcers on the hard palate, bloody nasal discharge, swelling of the left side of her face, left blepharoptosis, proptosis, and conjunctival injection. Histopathological examination of the palatal lesion showed large, nonseptate, right-angled branching fungal hyphae in the dermis, and Rhizopus species was isolated on Sabouraud's agar media. The patient was treated with a combination of amphotericin B and surgical debridements but died of asphyxia one month after admission. This is a relatively uncommon, opportunistic infection occurring in a diabetic woman, and only several cases are reported in the Korean literature up to date.