The Clinicopathological Profile of COVID-19 Associated Mucormycosis in Patients of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Jammu Region

ABSTRACT

[4] Further, due to a tremendous overload of COVID-19 patients in the hospitals, the regular blood sugar testing had taken a back seat at one point of time. [...]it has been seen that many of these patients were irrationally using or self medicating with high doses of corticosteroids, which added further to the impending doom. [5] As few patients who developed diabetes during their COVID-19 illness were previously unaware of their blood sugar levels, this may have resulted from the direct damage to pancreatic beta cells by the SARS-CoV-2 due to its affinity for the ACE2 receptor and indirectly by damaging smaller blood vessels supplying the beta cells. [6] The major predisposing factors for mucormycosis include uncontrolled diabetes mellitus resulting in diabetic ketoacidosis, other forms of metabolic acidosis, treatment with high dose corticosteroids, chronic, kidney disease, organ or bone marrow transplantation, febrile neutropenia, trauma and severe burns, various malignant hematologic disorders, and deferoxamine therapy in patients undergoing hemodialysis. In cases of angioinvasion, fungal hyphae were clearly seen in the walls of blood vessels or were identified forming thrombi at foci of necrosis.The fungal hyphae were identified in the blood vessel wall or were seen forming thrombi at foci with necrosis of adjacent tissue.