Pulmonary Aspergillosis in the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Abstract

Pulmonary aspergillosis is a possible late complication of AIDS; if diagnosed early, it may be treated successfully.

T Cell Vaccination in Mice with Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis

“…IPA, characterized by hyphal invasion and destruction of pulmonary tissue, is a leading cause of attributable mortality among patients with hematologic malignancies (4) and aplastic anemia (5) and among solid organ transplant recipients (6). Aspergillosis has recently surfaced as a frequent complication in critically ill neonates (7) and in patients with advanced HIV infection (8), although the highly active anti-retroviral therapy has dramatically reduced the risk of opportunistic infections in the latter (9).…”

Successful Management of Plastic Bronchitis in a Child Post Fontan: Case Report and Literature Review

“…Cardiac patients described by them include eight Fontan patients, three Blalock-Taussig shunt patients, and one Glenn shunt patient. Bronchial casts are noted in other disease states, such as sickle cell disease [12][13][14], metastatic lung tumors [4,15,16], viral infections [17,18], smoke inhalation [19][20][21], bronchopulmonary aspergillosis [22][23][24][25][26][27], thalassemia alpha [28], sulfur mustard inhalation [29], solvent aspiration [30], and the use of pegylated interferon [31].…”

Fungus ball in HIV-infected patients

“…Chest tomography (CT) demonstrates excellent advantage from chest radiograph for the intracavitary colonization diagnostic, showing the presence of a mass in a pre-existing cavity while this fungus ball is not yet apparent on radiography 3,11,16,26 .…”

“…These entities include chronic necrotizing aspergillosis (semi-invasive), allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, intracavitary colonization (fungus ball), bronchocentric granulomatosis or hypersensitivity pneumonitis. The distinction among subacute, acute angioinvasive pulmonary aspergillosis, chronic necrotizing aspergillosis and fungus ball has not been rigorously defined and an overlap in clinical and radiological features among these different entities probably exist 3,10,16,20 . As Aspergillus is a phagocyte opportunistic fungus, aspergillosis is unusual in patients with AIDS, except in late stages of the viral disease 14 .…”

“…Besides those, there are nonculture-based microbiological methods to facilitate rapid diagnosis and to monitor infection progression and response to therapy. Promising methods include antigen-based assays (serology), metabolite detection, and molecular detection of fungal DNA from body fluid samples 3,10 .…”