Filamentous fungi (moulds) are ubiquitous soil inhabitants whose conidia are inhaled into the respiratory tract, where they may cause life-threatening infections. Among these infections is invasive aspergillosis, which is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the severely immunocompromised. Risk factors for invasive aspergillosis include prolonged and severe neutropenia, hematopoietic ste...

Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) is difficult to diagnose because it requires histopathology and tissue culture, as well as due to its rapid progression. Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis is the primary cause of pulmonary mycosis in China, which can occur in patients with neutrophil deficiency, leukaemia or lymphoma, malignant tumours, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with long-ter...

presentation of an unusual case of cerebral aspergillosis in an immune competent patient who was treated successfully but symptoms and signs of a demyelinating process following initial recovery has been occurred. a 29-year-old male with focal seizure. brain mri revealed small multiple hemispheric and dural lesions. an open biopsy was conducted. histological evaluation revealed hyphe-like struc...

Aspergillus fumigatus, a ubiquitous fungus, causes a wide spectrum of clinical conditions ranging from allergic to invasive aspergillosis depending upon the hosts' immune status. Several animal models have been generated to mimic the human clinical conditions in allergic and invasive aspergillosis. The onset, duration and severity of the disease developed in models varied depending on the anima...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND; Bone aspergillosis remains a rare but potentially devastating fungal disease. Although voriconazole is effective for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, evidence of its efficacy for aspergillosis located in bone is limited. METHODS We report our experience with voriconazole in 4 cases of invasive bone aspergillosis. In addition, all cases of probable and definite bone asp...

BACKGROUND Voriconazole treatment increases early survival of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients with invasive aspergillosis. We investigated whether this survival advantage translates into an increased long-term survival. DESIGN AND METHODS This retrospective study involved all patients with an invasive aspergillosis diagnosis transplanted between September 1997 and Dec...

The ubiquitous opportunistic fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus rarely causes infections in immunocompetent individuals. A healthy functional innate immune system plays a crucial role in preventing Aspergillus-infection. This pivotal role for the innate immune system makes it a main research focus in studying the pathogenesis of aspergillosis. Although sometimes overshadowed by the innate im...

RATIONALE The clinical relevance of Aspergillus-positive endotracheal aspirates in critically ill patients is difficult to assess. OBJECTIVES We externally validate a clinical algorithm to discriminate Aspergillus colonization from putative invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in this patient group. METHODS We performed a multicenter (n = 30) observational study including critically ill patient...

Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is an immunologically complex allergic disorder caused by the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. Elevated levels of total immunoglobulin E (IgE), specific IgE, and IgG antibodies in sera are important immunodiagnostic criteria for ABPA. International reference standards or standardized immunodiagnostic assays are not available due to a lack of ...

Orbital aspergillosis is a very rare, debilitating disease which can present solely with painful optic neuropathy and mimic giant cell arteritis in an elderly person. We report case of orbital 65-year-old Malay man who presented unilateral gradual blurring vision ipsilateral headache. Our initial working diagnosis was arteritis. Unfortunately, patient’s condition worsened intravenous corticoste...