[Diseases due to opportunist organisms as the cause of death in autopsy material (author's transl)].

Opportunist organisms become pathogenic as a result of reduced resistance of the host. In 1000 unselected autopsies, a "purulent" infectious disease was found to be the cause of death in 15.7% of the cases, an opportunist pathogenic organism being frequently demonstrated on culture. Morphologically, with a suitable histological technique, only opportunist fungi showed a characteristic substrate. Visceral mycoses with considerable significance for the cause of death were found in 1% of all cases. This emphasizes the opportunist pathogenic fungus as a potentially fatal causative organism which, however, cannot possibly cause an infection if the reservoir of pathogens is cleared prophylactically.