Orbital cellulitis due to mucormycosis. A case report.

A case of orbital cellulitis caused by mucormycosis developed in a patient subsequent to cataract extraction and during systemic steroid treatment for postoperative complications. Fatal mucormycosis is a rare disease usually beginning with a subcutaneous inflammatory lesion. As the subsequent development of orbital cellulitis is very rare, little has been published on this subject. In cases of subcutaneous mucormycosis, the diagnosis can easily be made by means of histologic examination of the lesion. However, early diagnosis is difficult in cases with orbital involvement, because the most common cause of orbital cellulitis is bacterial. Thus, orbital cellulitis caused by mucormycosis is often wrongly treated with antibacterial agents only, as histologic examination is neither easy nor part of any routine investigation. Therefore, a combined treatment using antibiotics and antifungal agents in immunusuppressed patients with this disease is advocated.