THE ROENTGENOGRAPHIC FINDINGS IN INFANTILE AND CHILDHOOD HISTOPLASMOSIS

¹ From the Department of Radiology, University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Memphis, Tennessee

Forty-seven cases of active, proven, childhood histoplasmosis have been reviewed and tabulated according to age and clinical type of infection.

Histoplasmosis presents a variety of findings depending upon whether the infection is acute, subacute, chronic, localized or generalized. The course of the disease in infants and children differs greatly from that in the adult.

In the cases reviewed, infants under 1 year of age tended to have an acute, generalized, fatal infection with hepatosplenomegaly and negative skin tests. Of the 16 cases, 11 had essentially clear lung fields on admission and only 2 showed hilar lymphadenopathy. An enlarged spleen was evident on the chest roentgenograms in 11.

Twenty-eight of the 31 other children had hilar lymphadenopathy, and in 8 cases enlarged lymph nodes compressed a bronchus and/or the esophagus. In 7 of these 31 children, there was a widespread pulmonary infiltration with some degree of patchy confluence.

In contrast to the findings in adults, neither cavitation nor pleural involvement was seen in either the infants on the children.

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