OBJECTIVE:

To determine the prevalence of systemic fungal diseases and the clinical and epidemiological aspects of patients affected and hospitalized at the João de Barros Barreto University Hospital in Belém, Pará State, Brazil.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

It was a cross-sectional study carried out by searching the hospital's database, using the International Classification of Disease (ICD-10) from 2008 to 2017, with subsequent analysis of the demographic, epidemiological, and clinical aspects of patients.

RESULTS:

A total of 859 records of systemic fungal diseases were found, with a prevalence of 2.5% over the number of hospitalizations. The fungal pathologies diagnosed were candidiasis (41.2%), cryptococcosis (36.1%), histoplasmosis (10.0%), aspergillosis (5.5%), paracoccidioidomycosis (3.8%), pneumocystis (2.0%), unspecified mycoses (1.2%), and mucormycosis (0.2%). Most patients were male (61.7%), age group 20-59 years (81.8%), with a median of 34 years old, from the Metropolitan Area of Belém (61.5%), and had 1 to 3 years of schooling. Two-thirds of the patients had HIV/AIDS, and death was a determining factor for the shorter hospital stay in this group (p < 0.05). Of the total number of patients, 19.7% died, and the main cause was cryptococcosis. Comorbidities and complications did not influence the number of deaths.

CONCLUSION:

Fungal diseases remain an important cause of death, especially in immunosuppressed patients. Cryptococcosis still causes significant morbidity and mortality, being a global challenge.