What is Fungal Sinusitis? - Dr. Sreenivasa Murthy T M

These can get affected by viruses or bacteria and fungus. Now these are the 3 microorganisms which affect the human body. It can affect the various organs of the body. Fungus is something that is present always in the air. It is an opportunistic parasite. It doesn’t affect people with the normal immunity. It can get affected by fungus in the normal ways. Somebody who has allergic rhinitis and starts to develop polyps can develop fungal infections to an extent which is called as allergic fungal rhinosinusitis. This can tend to aggravate his or her problem along with the allergies that they do have. The polyps can continuously continue to increase in size, eroding the bone covering of the sinuses and cause pressure symptoms over the neighboring structures of the nose, the eye and the brain. These are the symptoms that they can produce. Second thing is if one has chronic sinusitis for years together, the secretion within the sinus doesn’t drain out at all and then there is a moist area in the sinus here the funguses can grow. So the fungus starts growing there and forms balls and get accumulated like small islets. This will settle down when the air enters the sinus for which we have to do a surgery. We have to open up the sinus opening and clear off the fungal walls from there and that should suffice. In diabetics and in those individuals with low immunity, the fungal infection can start growing into the tissues, which is called as invasive sinusitis. In such cases, they will have invasive pain and the tissues around the sinus will get involved, which can be life threatening and should be treated surgically, antifungal treatment. We diagnose fungal sinusitis largely by imaging, CT scan as well as MRI . To see if it is invasive or not, we need to do a biopsy, show it to a pathologist. If it is deep into the tissue stroma, then it needs debridement, that is it needs to be cleaned and managed with antifungal agents so that the fungal growth can be curtailed.