Pulmonary Aspergillosis: A Review on Diagnosis and Management

Abstract

Aspergillosis is acquired by inhalation of spores of Aspergillus, a ubiquitous species in the environment. In normal hosts, spore inhalation rarely causes lung disease. Pulmonary aspergillosis covers a wide spectrum of clinical syndromes depending on the interaction between Aspergillus and the host (immune-status, prior bronchopulmonary disease). It runs the gamut from invasive aspergillosis to Aspergillus bronchitis and colonization. Invasive aspergillosis occurs in severely immunocompromised patients, typically with neutropenia. Chronic pulmonary aspergillosis affects patients with chronic structural lung disease such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, mycobacterial lung disease, but without significant immunocompromise. Aspergillus bronchitis affects patients with bronchial disease such as bronchiectasis. Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis affects patients with bronchial asthma or cystic fibrosis, and is due to an allergic response to Aspergillus. In this review of literature, we discuss the pulmonary manifestations of Aspergillus infection, its diagnosis and treatments. DOI: 10.18297/jri/vol2/iss2/6 Received Date: March 8, 2018 Accepted Date: June 28, 2018 Website: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/jri Copyright: ©2018 the author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Affiliations: 1Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Disorders Medicine Department of Medicine, University of Louisville 2Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Louisville *Correspondence To: Bilal A Jalil Work Address: Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellow University of Louisville 550 S Jackson St, A3R40 Louisville, KY 40241, USA Work Email: bilal.jalil@louisville.edu 27 ULJRI Vol 2, (2) 2018 REVIEW ARTICLE