You are invited to collaborate in any of our ongoing projects! Contribute your clinical cases of invasive fungal infections by following the easy steps below:
Identify eligible clinical cases, which are included retrospectively, by checking for the following criteria:
- Inclusion criteria:
- Cultural, histopathological or DNA evidence of invasive probable or proven infection with a fungus (according to EORTC/MSG criteria)*
- Aspergillosis with a positive galactomannan result in serum or BAL fluid (ODI≥0.5) at day of diagnosis and at least 2 additional galactomannan results throughout therapy
- Clinical case should not be older than 10 years
- Exclusion criteria:
- Infection due to Cryptococcus neoformans, Pneumocystis jirovecii
- Endemic fungal infection such as coccidioidomycosis or histoplasmosis
- Colonisation only or other non-invasive infection
* Examples of emerging fungi:
Acremonium spp., Alternaria spp., Aspergillus spp., A. flavus, A. terreus, A. niger, A. nidulans, A. ustus etc., Aureobasidium spp., Bipolaris spp., Cladiophialophora spp., Cladosporium spp., Cryptococcus spp. other than neoformans, Curvularia spp., Exophiala spp., Fusarium spp., Geotrichum spp., Paecilomyces spp., Penicillium spp., Phialophora spp., Scedosporium spp., Trichoderma spp. and Trichosporon spp.
Email your affiliation to fungiscope[at]uk-koeln.de. We will set up a personal account for you to access the FungiScope® online questionnaire.
Documentation of your clinical case via the FungiScope® online questionnaire accessible through https://www.clinicalsurveys.net/.
Data are included completely anonymized and retrospective. Please contact us at fungiscope[at]uk-koeln.de if you have cases but limited resources for documentation. Together we find ways how FungiScope may support the documentation process.
The FungiScope® team will review your documented case and may send you queries to complete the validation process. If you may have questions related to the validation process, please contact us: fungiscope[at]uk-koeln.de
If available and local regulations allow, you may provide the clinical fungal isolate to the FungiScope® Central Lab in Cologne, Germany. You may also send the valuable isolate to a designated Central Lab in your country (Shipment form for samples).
Isolates will be stored at the Central Lab for central susceptibility testing and further research within the FungiScope® scientific network only. Isolates may be shared with FungiScope® partners solely for research studies with prior written request.
FungiQuest displays a summary of clinical cases from the database, completely anonymized. Any case or center identifying information is excluded. This service allows searching for specific pathogens, underlying conditions or therapeutic measures. By displaying case vignettes this service may help clinicians decide on the approach to their individual patient.
To guarantee high-quality information, only fully queried cases are available through FungiQuest.
Case enrollment is completely anonymized and retrospective. No patient-identifiable data are requested. Enrolled cases, diagnosed within the past 10 years are eligible.
If you would like to become a research partner and contribute clinical cases, for each valid case we provide a remuneration of 100 Euro (incl. tax and VAT). Being a member of our network offers the opportunity for international visibility, invitations to talks on mycological congresses and further collaborations. Your individual contribution is linked to appropriate authorship positions once results of any analyses will be published.
Please see our FungiScope® study protocol for detailed information:
Please contact us for further information and participation