Chronic necrotizing pulmonary aspergillosis

Med Mycol. 2004 Aug;42(4):369-71. doi: 10.1080/13693780410001657144.

Abstract

Chronic necrotizing pulmonary aspergillosis is not common and usually involves mildly immunosuppressed patients. We present a case of a 58-year-old man with a history of mining-related pneumoconiosis and corticosteroid therapy who developed bilateral pulmonary infiltrates and subsequent cavitation. The patient was treated at first as having community-acquired pneumonia and was only belatedly diagnosed as suffering from aspergillosis after Aspergillus fumigatus precipitins appeared in blood and the same fungus grew from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. A transthoracic needle biopsy revealed fungal filaments present in material extracted from a pulmonary lesion that was visible on scans. Treatment with amphotericin B, begun at the time that aspergillosis was diagnosed, proved to be ineffective, as was a later change to amphotericin B lipid complex. The diagnosis was confirmed at necropsy.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Aspergillosis / diagnostic imaging
  • Aspergillosis / microbiology*
  • Aspergillus fumigatus / isolation & purification*
  • Chronic Disease
  • Humans
  • Lung Diseases, Fungal / diagnostic imaging
  • Lung Diseases, Fungal / microbiology*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Necrosis
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed