Antibiotic Overuse in Acute Pulmonary Blastomycosis

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a common diagnosis and is caused by various organisms. Blastomycosis is a cause of CAP in endemic areas (the Mississippi and Ohio River basins, Mississippi and Arkansas River deltas, and the Great Lakes regions), although it is often not considered in the initial diagnosis due to the relative infrequency of infection. Most patients with CAP are treated in the ambulatory setting without sputum collection, so fungal smears are not usually done. Therefore, investigators performed a retrospective chart review for cases of pulmonary blastomycosis diagnosed at a multisite healthcare system in the upper Midwestern U.S., to determine if time to diagnosis was associated with certain clinical outcomes. Diagnosis …