Date: 26 November 2013
A part of the mycelium in a stained sputum plug showing the dichotomously branched hyphae of Aspergillus fumigatus.
Copyright: n/a
Notes:
Colonies on CYA 40-60 mm diam, plane or lightly wrinkled, low, dense and velutinous or with a sparse, floccose overgrowth; mycelium inconspicuous, white; conidial heads borne in a continuous, densely packed layer, Greyish Turquoise to Dark Turquoise (24-25E-F5); clear exudate sometimes produced in small amounts; reverse pale or greenish. Colonies on MEA 40-60 mm diam, similar to those on CYA but less dense and with conidia in duller colours (24-25E-F3); reverse uncoloured or greyish. Colonies on G25N less than 10 mm diam, sometimes only germination, of white mycelium. No growth at 5°C. At 37°C, colonies covering the available area, i.e. a whole Petri dish in 2 days from a single point inoculum, of similar appearance to those on CYA at 25°C, but with conidial columns longer and conidia darker, greenish grey to pure grey.
Conidiophores borne from surface hyphae, stipes 200-400 µm long, sometimes sinuous, with colourless, thin, smooth walls, enlarging gradually into pyriform vesicles; vesicles 20-30 µm diam, fertile over half or more of the enlarged area, bearing phialides only, the lateral ones characteristically bent so that the tips are approximately parallel to the stipe axis; phialides crowded, 6-8 µm long; conidia spherical to subspheroidal, 2.5-3.0 µm diam, with finely roughened or spinose walls, forming radiate heads at first, then well defined columns of conidia.
Distinctive features
This distinctive species can be recognised in the unopened Petri dish by its broad, velutinous, bluish colonies bearing characteristic, well defined columns of conidia. Growth at 37°C is exceptionally rapid. Conidial heads are also diagnostic: pyriform vesicles bear crowded phialides which bend to be roughly parallel to the stipe axis. Care should be exercised in handling cultures of this species.
Images library
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Title
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Image A
CT Scan 30/3/99
Showing extreme pleural thickening and 2 small cavities at apex of left lung.
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A 43 year old with smoking related emphysema was admitted to hospital with two separate episodes of haemoptysis. He had been in good health up to 1989, when he was diagnosed as having bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis. At that time a CT scan revealed a cavity in the left upper lobe (20.8cm2) with adjacent confluent infiltrates and pleural thickening. On bronchoscopic examination no abnormalities were noted and endobronchial biopsies did not reveal hyphae.
Over the next 4 years his condition deteriorated and a CT scan showed the left upper lobe cavity had increased to 40cm2. Itraconazole 400mg daily was prescribed. There was some clinical improvement on itraconazole but patient eventually deteriorated with breathlessness and with significant weight loss.
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