Large Solitary Pulmonary Cryptococcoma Mimicking Lung Carcinoma in an Immunocompetent Patient

ABSTRACT

Cryptococcosis is a life-threatening mycosis typically seen in immunocompromised patients. Pulmonary cryptococcosis generally presents as multiple or solitary nodular opacities. Cryptococcal infection presenting as a destructing cavernoma (cryptococcoma) without diffuse infiltration of the lung is an extremely rare presentation, even in immunocompromised patients. This report presents a healthy, HIV negative, immunocompetent patient who presented with a large solitary lung mass provisionally diagnosed as a lung malignancy on radiological imaging that proved to be a large cryptococcoma after biopsy. The patient was treated with liposomal Amphotericin B and fluconazole, and the lesion showed regression on serial imaging. This case report thus highlights an unconventional presentation of pulmonary cryptococcosis in an immunocompetent individual.