Author(s)

Arsa Thammahong^1*, Poomjit Thayidathara², Kanyarat Suksawat², Ariya Chindamporn²

¹Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, USA.
²Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.

From an increase in the number of immunocompromised hosts including AIDS patients, organ transplantation, solid-organ tumor, hematological malignancy, corticosteroid use, and others underlying diseases, it leads to increasing the incidence of invasive aspergillosis (IA) as one of the most prevalent opportunistic mould infections. However, the epidemiological data are still limited. Our objective is to study the epidemiology of IA, patients’ characteristics in a tertiary-care hospital, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand. The retrospective study of IA as principal diagnosis in both medical and laboratory records in a tertiary-care hospital, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2011, was performed. There were 69 patients who were diagnosed as IA during 2006 till 2011. They were classified as proven (45 patients), probable (3 patients), and possible (21 patients) invasive aspergillosis following the criteria of European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer/Mycoses Study Group (EORTC/MSG), 2008. The numbers of patients in 2006 to 2011 were 3, 11, 12, 10, 10, and 23 respectively. Male patients were 58 percent. The age range was from 8 months to 87 years old. Most of patients were from Medicine ward. Others were derived from Pediatrics, Surgery, and Ear Nose Throat wards. The most common underlying disease was diabetes mellitus type 2 in the proven group. The main predisposing factors of patients were the history of pulmonary tuberculosis and using of immunosuppressive drugs. The sites of infection were lung (62%), sinus (28%), and brain (8%). Aspergillus fumigatus (69%) and Aspergillus flavus (15%) were common species from the isolated culture. The treatment used mostly was surgery and followed by amphotericin B or voriconazole. The case fatality rate of IA was 20 percent. From the epidemiological data, we can conclude that in this past ten years there is an incessant increase in the number of IA in the immunocompromised hosts especially from Aspergillus fumigatus, which is the most prevalent species found in IA. Diabetes mellitus and history of pulmonary tuberculosis will play the important role for IA in the future. The plan for prevention and treatment should be concerned about those underlying diseases and predisposing factors.

Invasive Aspergillosis, Thailand, Epidemiology, Aspergillus, Tertiary Hospital

Thammahong, A. , Thayidathara, P. , Suksawat, K. and Chindamporn, A. (2015) Invasive Aspergillus Infections in a Thai Tertiary-Care Hospital during 2006-2011. Advances in Microbiology, 5, 298-306. doi: 10.4236/aim.2015.55029.