**5. Fungal and parasitic infections**

Fungal and parasitic infections are not as common as bacterial infections in postoperative patients, therefore there is no solid information about fungal infection in postoperative patients in the field of neurosurgery. As a known fact patients who are immunocompromised are having a greater risk for developing any kind of infection, and fungal infections can be seen in these group of patients more often. Indeed, a prolonged antibiotic treatment increases the susceptibility of patients for developing fungal infections and this should be taken into consideration. Mycosis in the CNS can be hard to diagnose as often they resemble tumor masses on MRI or CT scans and their differentiation is quite challenging if the patient does not have any background for infection or does not present signs and symptoms of infection physically or on laboratory findings. A complication of ongoing fungal infection can be mycotic aneurysms which can rupture and be life threatening.

As in any other infectious disease, mycosis of the CNS should be treated immediately based on culture results. Surgical resection of fungal abscesses or granulomas might be necessary in severe cases where antifungal therapy is not yielding positive results or due to the mass effect and midline shift caused by these lesions in the brain.
