(A216) Epidemiological Trends in Rhinocerebral Mucormycosis Infection

Introduction: Rising incidence of diabetes along with already lacking epidemiological data on mucormycosis may portend a rising incidence of rhinocerebral mucormycosis - an invasive and debilitating fungal infection. This study evaluates epidemiological trends in rhinocerebral mucormycosis infection in relation to diabetes and other predisposing conditions.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted via review of de-identified electronic medical records of 132 million patients across 96 healthcare organizations via TriNetX clinical database. We assessed incidence and prevalence of mucormycosis from January 2004 to December 2023. We then stratified by age, race, and sex to capture evolving trends between diagnosis and clinical characteristics of the study population.

Results: 3470 cases of mucormycosis were included in this study. 61% of cases occurred in patients with underlying respiratory disease, 59% of patients had underlying endocrine disease - including 32% of patients with diabetes mellitus, and 39% of patients had underlying hematological disease. Compared with previous population studies, we observed a higher incidence of mucormycosis across the study period. Our study observed an increasing average age of mucormycosis infection. Mean age of mucormycosis infection was 57 years in our study compared to 38.8 years in a prior study. Mucormycosis predominance in the male sex was unchanged from previous studies. A higher proportion of mucormycosis cases in our study occurred in patients with underlying disease. Compared with previous population studies, a higher proportion of patients had underlying diabetes mellitus or hematologic disease.

Conclusions: This study observed a rising incidence of mucormycosis infection in diabetics and patients with underlying hematologic disease compared to prior population-level studies.