Fine needle aspiration of nodular cystic swelling showing a rare melanized fungus Medicopsis romeroi: A case report

• Published in: Diagnostic cytopathology Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 401 - 404
• Main Authors: Prasad, Shubhra, Khurana, Ujjawal, Karuna, Tadepalli, Brahmachari, Swagata, Sinha, Jitendra Kumar, Tandon, Ashwani, Kapoor, Neelkamal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-04-2020; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Case reports; cystic swelling; deep fungal infection; FNAC; Fungi; phaeohyphomycosis; Pleosporales; FNAC; Pleosporales; cystic swelling; phaeohyphomycosis; deep fungal infection
• ISSN: 8755-1039; 1097-0339
• DOI: 10.1002/dc.24383

A young woman on long term corticosteroid therapy presented with a discrete hyperpigmented nodular cystic swelling on her upper thigh to the buttock region. There was history of discharging sinuses however at presentation the lesion was painless nondischarging. The lesion was subjected to fine‐needle aspiration. The cytological smears on routine and special stains showed branching, septate fungal hyphae present extracellularly and intracellularly. The background showed dense mixed inflammation and granulomatous inflammation. The aspirated material was further subjected to culture. A nonsporulating melanized fungus was obtained and a culture isolate was sent for molecular characterization. Medicopsis romeroi, a rare melanized fungus belonging to the order Pleosporales was isolated on Internal transcribed spacer sequencing.