Adiaspiromycosis: An Uncommon Disease Caused by an Unusual Pathogen

Adiaspiromycosis is a pulmonary disease caused in humans by the fungus Chrysosporium parvum var. crescens (Emmonsia crescens ), a soil saprophyte of cosmopolitan distribution. The disease was first described in Arizona rodents by Emmons and Ashburn in 1942, and the first human case was reported from France in 1964. Subsequently, human infection was reported from Czechoslovakia, where most of the work characterizing this disease and its etiologic agent has been done, and from the USSR, Central America, and Venezuela. Although adiaspiromycosis occurs in rodents and other small mammals throughout the world, no autochthonous human cases have been reported from the United States.