r/pediatriccancer • u/Aware_Anything9574 • Feb 26 '26

Invasive fungal infection in pediatric cancer patient

My 7 yr old son got diagnosed with T cell all back in October 2025 and had been admitted back into the hospital for fever.

After scans they discovered he has IFI in his lungs, spleen and liver. They've sent out multiple samples to try to identify it but everything comes back inconclusive. He's on 1 antibiotic and 2 anti-fungals. Fevers have gone away but they said we might be here until they identify it. Ahhhhh that could be months. Has anyone had fungus where they couldn't identify it? What did they have to do? Is there anything different they tried that helped?

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u/cd31paws Feb 26 '26

How are they taking the samples? I don't have much to add other than fungi grow really slowly and can take a really long time to diagnose and treat so hopefully they can release him when they have a good plan, which hopefully will be soonish. My 3.5yo son has T cell ALL too and we've been in and out of the hospital a lot with fevers over the course of treatment. It's no fun

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u/Aware_Anything9574 Feb 26 '26

They have gone in with a camera in his lungs and tried to flush some out and send it off for a sample multiple times. But nothing ever grows. They don’t want to do a biopsy unless it’s necessary bc it’s not in an easy place without cutting him. And I appreciate that. We don’t want him to be cut unless it really is needed. Just was seeing if anyone ever had to go through this. Thank you.

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u/Capable-Screen-3993 Feb 27 '26

My son was hospitalized for fever at the end of DI. He also has T-ALL (he finishes treatment tomorrow!) similar situation as you are describing and they found nodules in his lungs that they suspected were fungal. They were too small and too deep to biopsy so they just treated him with an antifungal and did more scans a month later. The nodules shrunk so he continued on the same course. He was on antifungals for 5 months. He was hospitalized for 12 days for various reasons but the fungal infection did not keep him admitted longer.