As a leading company in the field of drug discovery industry, Creative Biolabs has gained a wealth of good reputation for successfully providing a full range of target identification and validation services to discover new drug candidates for the treatment of cutaneous aspergillosis.
What is Cutaneous Aspergillosis?
Cutaneous aspergillosis is a rare form of a locally invasive disease which is caused by Aspergillus entering the body through a break in the skin of people who have weakened immune systems. Two types of Aspergillus infections have been described: primary cutaneous Aspergillus infection and secondary cutaneous Aspergillus infection. Generally, primary cutaneous aspergillosis occurs in the sites of skin injury following intravenous cannulation, trauma, occlusive dressing, burns or surgery. Secondary cutaneous lesions may result from the widespread haematogenous seeding of the skin. Cutaneous aspergillosis can also occur if invasive aspergillosis spreads to the skin from somewhere else in the body, such as the lungs.
Fig.1 In cases of primary cutaneous aspergillosis (left), inflammation is either solely superficial with sparing of the subcutaneous fat (arrow), as in this case, or superficial and deep. In contrast, the epicenter of inflammation in secondary cutaneous aspergillosis (right) tends to be solely deep dermal or subcutaneous (arrow). (Murakawa, 2000)
Symptoms of Cutaneous Aspergillosis
The initial symptoms of cutaneous aspergillosis may appear as macules, papules, nodules, or plaques. Pustules or lesions with purulent discharge generally occur among neonates. For infections caused by arm board or occlusive tape used for secure an access catheter, a hemorrhagic bulla may begin at the site of the skin trauma. However, infections arising at the site of an intravenous catheter puncture typically begin with erythema and induration at the skin puncture site. Furthermore, typical symptoms of a patient with primary cutaneous aspergillosis include significant fever, a change in the character of the wound surface, swelling, induration, and tenderness.
Diagnosis of Cutaneous Aspergillosis
Diagnosis of all types of cutaneous aspergillosis depends on seeing the hyphal forms in the tissue. Generally, the diagnosis of cutaneous aspergillosis requires biopsy of a skin lesion taken for both culture and histopathology. If a single biopsy specimen is taken, the biopsy specimen should be divided and one half should be sent in saline to the microbiology laboratory for fungus culture and the other half should be sent in formalin to the pathology laboratory for histopathology analysis. In addition to culture and histology, serum biomarkers can sometimes be used to support or confirm the diagnosis of cutaneous aspergillosis. Serum galactomannan and beta-D-glucan assays have recently become available, though their sensitivity and specificity are varied depending on the clinical context.
Treatment of Cutaneous Aspergillosis
Treatment of cutaneous aspergillosis generally depends on the underlying status of the patients. Commonly, antifungal medication, consideration of surgical debridement of infected tissue, and decreasing immunosuppression are the three elements of therapy for this and all types of aspergillosis. For example, cutaneous aspergillosis in burn victims occurs as a primary disease, treated principally with a surgical approach that may involve amputation. Conversely, the approach in premature neonates with cutaneous aspergillosis, who do not tolerate skin surgery well, is antifungal chemotherapy without surgery. During the past years, multiple antifungal drugs have been developed for the treatment of aspergillosis.
In the past, Creative Biolabs has developed a series of approaches for potential antifungal targets exploiting, including target identification and validation, hit identification, and hit to lead. Our professional scientists will try their best to satisfy every client’s specific requirements. In addition to cutaneous aspergillosis, we also offer drug discovery services against other aspergilloses as well as Aspergillus spp. For more detailed information, please feel free to contact us.
Reference
For Research Use Only.
