Great balls of fungus! Giant ball of fungus removed from man's lung.

Well this is horrifying. A 42-year old Italian farmworker had been suffering from a persistent cough, fevers and substantial weight loss (77 lbs) for over year and despite several courses of antibiotic, his condition wasn't improving. Eventually a CT scan revealed a large cavity filled with a "vegetative" mass. I'm not a doctor, but I'm wondering if there's not something about this description that is being loss in translation because they still seemed shocked when the 2.75-inch by 2.5-inch mass turned out to be large ball of fungus!

source (discovery.com)

The discovery.com article linked a second story from livescience.com, complete with gruesome pictures.

link to livescience.com story

reply to post by theantediluvian


Oh, that's one of the worst things I've heard. My wife had a fungus under her thumbnail that she just couldn't get rid of and it caused her such pain. I can't imagine having a mass like that in the lung. Ugh! That would have to be unbearable!

Damn....

That's some nasty stuff alright!

I wonder if he ever had any tinge to his breath since that was in his lungs? I know moulds and funghi often have that earthy smell to it so i'm wondering if he experienced something similar? Maybe because he was a smoker that could've masked it possibly.

Either way...gross.

This actually doesn't surprise me in the least. I say this because my boss's dad (a VERY old man) was having a hard time breathing and a plethora of other problems for a year and doctors couldn't quite pinpoint exactly what was happening. They tried treatments for all kinds of things until finally they got a good close look inside of his lungs. Now, my boss's dad still has cows that he tends to so spends a lot of time near hay and all of that while he takes care of the cows. As it turned out, he had inhaled a large number of mold spores and the lungs being so warm and damp gave the mold a perfect environment to grow. He had mold growing inside of his lungs to a rampant number so badly that he could not breathe.


They of course treated him after that when they finally knew what to do. I was astounded in a way because I would have never even thought of mold growing inside of lungs and certainly would never want any makings its home inside of mine!

I think it was in 'Reader's Digest' I read, many years ago, of a woman who kept going to her doctor and complaining that everything she eat and smelled tasted and smelt of mould, the doctor could not find anything, eventually the poor woman died, during the autopsy, when her skull was cut open, the surface of her brain was covered in green mould, 'not very nice' is truly an understaement!

EEeeeewwwww. I`ve just eaten my dinner, this is nasty stuff lol.

I never thought mold could grow inside of you. Thats creepy. I`m laying of the mushrooms for a while.

reply to post by fenian8


Well, if you think about it, quite a few areas of your body are just perfect breeding grounds for large amounts of mold. Lots of nice warm areas because we are warm blooded by nature and mold just loves warm areas. There's also the fact that a lot of our body systems are lubricated because they expand and contract on a daily basis. So now, we have mold's two favorite elements: Warmth and moisture. If you're ever working around damp or wet hay anyone if you're a farmer, please please be careful.