Postmortem analysis of invasive aspergillosis in a tertiary care hospital

To estimate the incidence of fatal invasive aspergillosis in a 1500-bed tertiary-care hospital and to investigate the utility of laboratory diagnostic approaches, necropsy protocols and microbiological data from 1994 and 1995 were reviewed. Among 694 necropsies from 1693 patients who died in these two years, 27 (4%) cases of invasive aspergillosis were identified. Twelve cases of invasive aspergillosis were found after transplantation of solid organs, three after bone marrow transplantation, four in patients with haematological malignancies, and five in patients with solid tumours. In 15 cases (56%) invasive aspergillosis was not suspected before death. In patients in whom serum sampling was performed seven days antemortem, the Aspergillus latex agglutination test had a sensitivity of 53% (9/17). Culture of tracheal secretions or bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from patients with pulmonary aspergillosis yielded Aspergillus fumigatus in 88% (14/16).