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Sixty four patients suffering a chronic disseminated histoplasmosis were studied with the aim of fingind if they had predisposing factors. Thirty cases (46.8%) presented the following predisposing conditions: long treatment with low doses of corticosteroids in 7, ethilic hepatopathy in 7, diabetes in 4, lymphoma in 3, epitheliomas in 3, epitheliomas and diabetes in 1, renal insufficiency in 1, toxic hepatitis in 1, radiations in 1, long treatment with psychotropics in 1 and primary combined immunodeficiency in 1. Only slight differences were detected between these two groups of patients; those who exhibited predisposing factors presented an increased number of clinical localizations, altered cell mediated immunological tests were more frequent as well as the number of patients with multiple relapses and deaths. Histoplasmosis was not the cause of death in any case. It is possible that if a more frequent aggressive exploration, as hepatic biopsy, would be done a higher number of patients with predisposing factors would have been demonstrated.

The aerobic bacterial flora of 63 cases of onicolysis 78 of paronychis and 5 of onicomadesis produced by yeast-like fungus were studied. Bacterial isolation was carried out in nutrient agar with a concentration of 10 mug/ml of nystatin. These microorganisms were identified following the Otto Bier and Bailey & Scott's techniques (3, 1). Bacterial contamination was very frequent. One species or more were isolated from 93,6% of onicolysis and 97% of paronychis. The onicolysis presented the following flora: "Staphylococcus aureus" in 22 cases, "Staphylococcus epidermidis" in 21, Gram positive sporulated bacilli in 17, "Enterobacteriaceae" in 13, and "Pseudomona aeruginosa" in 6. The paronychial lesions showed the following flora: "Staphylococcus aureus" in 21 cases, "Staphylococcus epidermidis" in 26, Gram positive sporulated bacilli in 17, "Enterobacteriaceae" in 17 and "Pseudomona aeruginosa" in 3. It is important to emphasize that "Pseudomona aeruginosa" was isolated in a few cases of both types of candidal onixis, contrary to usual reports (2, 4, 9). No significant difference between the aerobic bacterial flora of the onicolysis and paronychia was found, that would give an explanation of the existence of these two clinical forms of candidal nails infection.

A comparative study between ketoconazole and itraconazole in the prophylactic and curative treatment of experimental paracoccidioidomycosis in rats and guinea pigs was carried out. Ninety seven Wistar rats were inoculated intracardiacally with the yeast-phase of P. brasiliensis with the purpose of evaluating the prophylactic treatment. Eighty one guinea pigs were injected intratesticularly with the same microorganism with the aim of studying the healing treatment. Both drugs were administered by gavage once a day. The prophylactic treatment started 3 days before the challenger inoculation and the healing treatment begun 10 days after the challenger inoculation. The animals were divided in four groups: I), control animals to which only the solvents of both drugs were administered; II), those which received ketoconazole 40 mg/kg/day; III), those treated with the same drug 80 mg/kg/day, and IV), animals treated with itraconazole 8 mg/kg/day. Seven to 30 days after starting the healing and prophylactic treatments the results were evaluated. Itraconazole seems to be as effective as ketoconazole at 5 fold lower dosage.