Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in patients with acute respiratory syndrome by COVID-19.

ABSTRACT

Patients with COVID-19 who are admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) are at high risk of developing secondary infections, including invasive fungal infections such as invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). The main purpose was to analyse the putative COVID-19 Associated Pulmonary Aspergillosis (CAPA) patients in our setting. In these patients, we performed mycological culture in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) for isolation of Aspergillus sp. We followed the AspICU algorithm to diagnose putative IPA. Moreover, we considered relevant the positivity of Galactomannan in BAL. We diagnosed putative IPA in 3 patients. The common features of these 3 patients were more than 21 days of stay in ICU, severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and treatment with steroids (1 mg/kg per day). Therefore, CAPA has to be systematically considered although a new algorithm to diagnose it is needed to treat patients in early stages in order to avoid catastrophic outcomes.