Neonatal fungal infections: the state of the art.

Candida spp is the 3rd most frequent cause of sepsis in preterm infants, with high attributable mortality and poor outcome. Neonatal fugal infections include bloodstream, urine, cerebrospinal and peritoneal infections. Preterm infants display specific, often unavoidable, risk factors for SFI, with fungal colonization being the most significant one. Prompt treatment does not prevent poor long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. Thus, prevention is the milestone, and should mainly rely on the administration of targeted prophylactic fluconazole to high-risk infants, as recently demonstrated by a large Italian multicenter study. As prevention is key in pediatrics, finally we can deliver this to this vulnerable population.

[Thymic hyperplasia. Description of a clinical case]. / Ipertrofia timica. Descrizione di un caso clinico.

Thymomegaly, which was in the past considered as predisposition to sudden death infants, is judged today as paraphysiological. The study achieved on a 10 months' patient shows the complexity in determining the diagnosis of simple thymic hyperplasia, when together with a massive thymus enlargement are conditions which divert to other pathologies, as in this tested clinical case.