Comparison of the clinical features of HIV-positive and HIV-negative hosts infected with Talaromyces marneffei: A multicenter, retrospective study

Objectives: Talaromyces marneffei is an emerging pathogen, and the number of infections in HIV-negative individuals is rapidly increasing. Nevertheless, there is no sufficient comprehensive report on this issue, and awareness needs to be raised among clinicians.Methods: We analyzed the differences in the clinical data of patients who are HIV-negative and HIV-positive with Talaromyces marneffei infection (TMI) from 2018 to 2022.Results: A total of 848 patients were included, among whom 104 were HIV-negative. The obvious dif-ferences between the HIV-positive and HIV-negative groups were as follows: (i) the patients who are HIV-negative were older and more likely to exhibit cough and rash, (ii) the time in days from symp-tom onset to diagnosis among patients who are HIV-negative was longer, (iii) the laboratory findings and radiological presentations seemed more severe in patients who are HIV-negative, (iv) differences were ob-served regarding the underlying conditions and co-infection pathogens, and correlation analysis showed that correlations existed for many indicators, (v) and persistent infection was more likely to occur in patients who are HIV-negative.Conclusion: TMI in patients who are HIV-negative differs from that in patients who are HIV-positive in many aspects, and more investigations are needed. Clinicians should be more aware of TMI in patients who are HIV-negative.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )