Background: Cryptococcosis is a life-threatening disease caused by Cryptococcus neoformans or C. gattii. Autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in otherwise healthy adults with cryptococcal meningitis have been described since 2013. We searched for neutralizing auto-Abs in sera from Colombian patients with non-HIV related cryptococcosis in a retrospective national cohort collected from 1997 to 2016.
Methods: We reviewed clinical and laboratory records and assessed the presence of neutralizing auto-Abs in 30 HIV (-) adults presenting cryptococcosis (13 by C. gattii, and 17 by C. neoformans).
Results: We detected auto-Abs neutralizing GM-CSF in the plasma of 9 out of 13 (69%) patients infected with C. gattii and 1 out of 17 (6%) patients with C. neoformans.
Conclusions: We report ten Colombian patients with cryptococcosis due to auto-Abs neutralizing GM-CSF. Nine of the ten patients were infected with C. gattii, and only one with C. neoformans.
Keywords: Cryptococcosis; Cryptococcus gattii; Cryptococcus neoformans; GM-CSF autoantibodies; Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF); HIV-negative patients; Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb); Pulmonary tuberculosis (Tb); anti-cytokine autoantibodies; autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing GM-CSF; human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).