Galactomannan in Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid for Diagnosis of Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis with Nonneutropenic Patients

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the utility of galactomannan (GM) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) for the diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) in nonneutropenic patients. METHODS: A total of 183 patients were included in the final analysis. Bronchoscopies and the detection of GM in BALF were all performed on them. RESULTS: Ten cases of IPA were diagnosed. ROC data demonstrated that, for diagnosing IPA, an optimal cutoff value for GM in BALF of 0.76 yielded a sensitivity of 100.0% and a specificity of 76.2%. Symptoms and radiological findings had no significant difference between proven or probable IPA group and non-IPA group. In our case-control analysis, although nine patients with false-positive results received treatment with Piperacillin/tazobactam, there was no significant difference between case and control group. CONCLUSIONS: BALF GM detection is a valuable adjunctive diagnostic tool. Our retrospective study suggests that the optimal value of GM detection in BALF is 0.76 in nonneutropenic patients.