Common mistakes in managing pulmonary coccidioidomycosis

Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever) is a common disease in Arizona and certain other parts of the Southwestern United States. Despite this, there is a surprising lack of awareness, neglect in diagnosis, and inadequacy of management by many clinicians in these endemic regions. This review discusses why early diagnosis of coccidioidal infection is valuable to patient care and offers a variety of management options that are particularly useful and others which often are of little value.