A retrospective clinical study about the serum Aspergillus precipitating antibody testing in our hospital
Yoichiro Andoa Yasuhiko Kitasatob,c Yoshiaki Taob Kazuko Matsunagac Shinji Iseb Shohei Takatab Midori Kubotaa Tomoaki Hoshinoc Masayuki Kawasakib Hisamichi Aizawac
aDepartment of Clinical Laboratory, National Hospital Organization Fukuoka-Higashi Medical Center
bDepartment of Respirology, National Hospital Organization Fukuoka-Higashi Medical Center
cDivision of Respirology, Neurology, and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Kurume University School of Medicine
The objective of our retrospective clinical study was to investigate the validity of serum Aspergillus precipitating antibody testing (using the Aspergillus immunodiffusion system [Microgen Bioproducts Ltd., UK]) to diagnose chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA). We gathered records of patients who required this test in our hospital from February to December in 2009. We examined the number of precipitation arcs, diagnoses of the patients, and frequencies of "false-negative" cases in "positive-result" patients and of "false-positive" cases in "negative-result" patients. In 24 positive-result patients, most showing more than two precipitation arcs in the test were patients with CPA, but it was doubtful that some were false-positive. In 99 negative-result patients, 85 were thought to be nonaspergillosis, but 4 with CPA showed false-negative results of this test at the first inspection. For the serodiagnosis of CPA, this test showed the best results if the positive judgment criteria were set as more than two precipitation arcs, such as sensitivity of 78.9% and a specificity of 95.6%. We consider this test useful for the clinical diagnosis of CPA.
Aspergillus precipitating antibody Pulmonary aspergillosis Sensitivity Specificity
Received 28 Feb 2011 / Accepted 25 Aug 2011
AJRS, 1(1): 3-8, 2012