Rush B, et al. - Via this large retrospective cohort study of 1,848 patients with a diagnosis of blastomycosis, researchers sought to inscribe the risk factors and outcomes of patients with severe pulmonary blastomycosis. In this cohort, mechanical ventilation (MV) was provided to 219 (11.9%) patients with a mortality rate of 39.7% vs 2.5% in patients not requiring ventilatory support. Patients treated in teaching hospitals had higher rate of MV (63.4% vs 57.2%) and the rate was lower for those receiving care at a rural hospital (12.3% vs 17.2%). A multivariate model revealed increased risk of mortality in correlation with female gender and with increasing patient age.