Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jun 6, 2025; 13(16): 100672
Published online Jun 6, 2025. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v13.i16.100672
Pulmonary cryptococcosis in immunocompetent children presenting with chest pain: Three case reports
Xiao-Nan Li, Jie-Hua Chen, Zhi-Wei Lu
Xiao-Nan Li, Zhi-Wei Lu, Department of Respiratory Diseases, Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen 518038, Guangdong Province, China
Jie-Hua Chen, Department of Respiratory, Shenzhen Children’s Hospital, Shenzhen 518038, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Li XN contributed to manuscript writing and data collection; Chen JH contributed to manuscript review and editing; Lu ZW contributed to data analysis, manuscript review and editing; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Shenzhen Fund for Guangdong Provincial High-Level Clinical Key Specialties, No. SZGSP012; and Shenzhen Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund, No. SZXK032.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patients’ parents/guardians agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist statement.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zhi-Wei Lu, MD, Chief Doctor, Department of Respiratory Diseases, Shenzhen Children's Hospital, No. 7019 Yitian Road, Futian District, Shenzhen 518038, Guangdong Province, China. luzhiwei1950@163.com
Received: August 22, 2024
Revised: December 11, 2024
Accepted: January 17, 2025
Published online: June 6, 2025
Processing time: 171 Days and 16.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Pulmonary cryptococcosis is a relatively rare pediatric pulmonary fungal infection. It usually occurs in immunocompromised children but may also occur in immunocompetent children. It can be complicated by central nervous system cryptococcosis or can occur alone. Pulmonary cryptococcal infection has no specific clinical features, and its diagnosis is difficult. If we do not pay sufficient attention to it, it can be easily missed or misdiagnosed, which can be life-threatening. Early diagnosis and timely initiation of antifungal therapy can improve disease prognosis.