Histopathologic Diagnosis of Invasive Mycoses

With his 1st edition of Histopathologic Diagnosis of Invasive Mycoses, Henrik Elvang Jensen introduced what has the potential to become a standard reading for early-career as well as experienced pathologists. Colleagues from other specialties will benefit from this reading, as this book not only succeeds in educating on how to diagnose fungal diseases based on histopathological findings but also in providing a comprehensive overview on the diversity of fungal diseases in patients with a wide range of underlying diseases.
Henrik Elvang Jensen has taken on a challenging task to provide experienced and inexperienced clinicians with a comprehensive but concise handbook about histopathological diagnosis in mycology. Timely diagnosis of fungal infection, assessment of invasiveness and the identification of the causative pathogen are key for tailored therapeutic decision making that will save lives. Histopathology is an essential part in diagnostics, usually the first stop on the road to a confirmed diagnosis.
With the growing number of patients at risk for fungal infections and the expanding spectrum of causative fungal pathogens, it becomes more and more pressing to train pathologists adequately to be aware of a possible fungal infection and how to differentiate fungal infections from other more commonly suspected findings, especially in patients with co morbidities. A vital task, considering the high mortality rates in respective patients. Due to the general low incidence of most fungal diseases, gaining hands-on experience in identifying and morphological differentiating fungal diseases is rather difficult for pathologists and requires years-long training.
This book guides the reader through the ever-growing armamentarium of fungal infections, each chapter devoted to one fungal disease and its histopathological features. As diverse as the patient populations at risk for fungal infections and the causative fungal pathogens are, as diverse are the clinical and consequently morphological manifestations these infections come in. Jensen allows the reader to look over his shoulder while he lays out the disease-specific changes in cell and tissue morphology and architecture, fungus by fungus, disease by disease. In high-resolution images he presents and explains characteristic histopathological findings in tissue sections dyed with one or more stains, moving his microscope from superficial to invasive infections, from the most common infections including aspergillosis, candidosis, cryptococcosis, coccidioidomycosis and histoplasmosis to the less common and rare infections, from omnipresent to endemic infections.
Jensen’s many years of experience in pathology and his passion for mycology allows him to provide the reader with this structured overview that will help generations of pathologists to further improve their skills in spotting the often-overlooked fungal bodies and interpret the composition of cells in this context in any tissue, in any patient. A must-have for every microbiologist, pathologist and infectious diseases physician.

Danila Seidel PhD and Oliver A. Cornely MD
ECMM Diamond Excellence Center, Department I of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Cologne and CECAD Cluster of Excellence, Translational Research Infectious Diseases, University of Cologne, Germany