Aspergillosis
Aspergillus is a ubiquitous organism occurring throughout the world that feeds on dead animal or plant material, and in this role it is vitally important to the environment to recyle all kinds of biological materials. It is spread via microscopically small spores that are extremely light and float easily in the air.
Aspergillosis is an infection by the fungus Aspergillus.
Aspergillosis describes a large number of diseases involving both infection and growth of fungus as well as allergic responses. Aspergillosis can occur in a variety of organs, both in humans and animals. All animals and many plants have highly efficient mechanisms to prevent themselves being infected by Aspergillus, and it is usually only when those mechanisms are defective in some way that Aspergillus can grow within the body.
The vast majority of people who may develop aspergillosis are those that have had their immune system weakened - possibly after transplant surgery or following treatments for cancer. Alternatively aspergillosis can occur in a normal immunocompetent person (i.e. a person with no known suppression of their immune system) where previous tissue damage has occurred - for instance heavily scarred pulmonary tissue associated with tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or bronchiectasis. Comprehensive overview.

Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis

The most common sites of aspergillus infection are the respiratory apparatus (lungs, sinuses) and these infections can be:
Airways of ABPA patient
Invasive aspergillosis

Invasive aspergillosis normally only occurs in severely immune-compromised patients and has a high mortality rate (25-90%). Invasive disease is most commonly seen in the lungs, which is called pulmonary aspergillosis, but although less common, dissemination of aspergillus to other tissues including the central nervous system, sinuses, bone, heart, kidney, eye, blood and skin have been reported. Risk factors for invasive aspergillosis include patients on steroids, chemotherapy treatment resulting in severe neutropenia, stem cell and solid organ transplantation, later stages of AIDS, and a genetic disease called chronic granulomatous disease.

Diagnosis:

Diagnosis can be made by detection of aspergillus species by biopsy, culture and microscopy of tissue samples. Chest CT scans and detection of aspergillus antigens in body fluids, by a variety of methods, all assist with diagnosis but do not give a definitive diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis.

Treatment:

Treatment is with antifungal drugs such as voriconazole, caspofungin, itraconazole, posaconazole, or amphotericin B. Voriconazole is usually more effective than amphotericin B however serum levels of voriconazole and itraconazole must be monitored and individually adjusted. There are many other drug interactions known for both itraconazole and voriconazole which must be considered.

Aspergillus fumigatus

The Aspergillus/Aspergillosis website has detailed information on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of aspergillosis in all its forms, as well as information for patients suffering from aspergillosis and details of how to recognise and differentiate between the many different species of aspergillus. Visit patients'site.

Patients should also visit the Aspergillus Trust website, where our sister charity provides more patient focussed information.
For more information on aspergillus and its diseases with a multilingual translation click here
 

Example images

We have an extensive collection of images of some of the many hundreds of species of aspergillus, though only a small number of these are known to cause aspergillosis. All of these images can be viewed once you have registered, but we have prepared a small sample for everyone here:

Aspergillosis Site map

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This page was created on: July 4 2007

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