Invasive Aspergillus infections in patients with a malignancy: description of an outbreak and overview of the literature.

Improved results can be obtained by increasing the intensity of chemotherapy in patients with cancer. Prolonged granulocytopenia due to intensive chemotherapy schedules, however, is a frequent cause of infectious complications. Fungal infections, especially Aspergillus infections, are being recognized with increasing frequency. We describe an outbreak of invasive Aspergillus infections in six cancer patients treated with chemotherapy and we give an overview of the diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas encountered in patients with invasive Aspergillus infection.