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The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma
In patients with asthma, the inhalation of elevated amounts of fungal spores and hyphae may precipitate the onset of asthma or worsen control to the extent of being life-threatening. Sensitisation to fungi, especially Aspergillus fumigatus, is found in 15% to 48% of asthmatics in secondary care and...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7646070/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33292524 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13601-020-00353-8 |
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author | Rapeport, W. Garth Ito, Kazuhiro Denning, David W. |
author_facet | Rapeport, W. Garth Ito, Kazuhiro Denning, David W. |
author_sort | Rapeport, W. Garth |
collection | PubMed |
description | In patients with asthma, the inhalation of elevated amounts of fungal spores and hyphae may precipitate the onset of asthma or worsen control to the extent of being life-threatening. Sensitisation to fungi, especially Aspergillus fumigatus, is found in 15% to 48% of asthmatics in secondary care and is linked to worse asthma control, hospitalisation, bronchiectasis and fixed airflow obstruction, irrespective of whether allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is diagnosed. ABPA represents a florid response to the presence of Aspergillus spp. but up to 70% of patients with severe asthma exhibit sensitisation to different fungi without meeting the diagnostic criteria for ABPA. The presence of persistent endobronchial colonisation with fungi, especially A. fumigatus, is linked to significantly higher rates of radiological abnormalities, lower post-bronchodilator FEV1 and significantly less reversibility to short acting bronchodilators. The therapeutic benefit for antifungal intervention in severe asthma is based on the assumption that reductions in airway fungal burden may result in improvements in asthma control, lung function and symptoms (especially cough). This contention is supported by several prospective studies which demonstrate the effectiveness of antifungals for the treatment of ABPA. Significantly, these studies confirm lower toxicity of treatment with azoles versus high dose oral corticosteroid dosing regimens for ABPA. Here we review recent evidence for the role of fungi in the progression of severe asthma and provide recommendations for the use of antifungal agents in patients with severe asthma, airways fungal infection (mycosis) and fungal colonisation. Documenting fungal airways colonisation and sensitisation in those with severe asthma opens up alternative therapy options of antifungal therapy, which may be particularly valuable in low resource settings. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7646070 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-76460702020-11-06 The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma Rapeport, W. Garth Ito, Kazuhiro Denning, David W. Clin Transl Allergy Review In patients with asthma, the inhalation of elevated amounts of fungal spores and hyphae may precipitate the onset of asthma or worsen control to the extent of being life-threatening. Sensitisation to fungi, especially Aspergillus fumigatus, is found in 15% to 48% of asthmatics in secondary care and is linked to worse asthma control, hospitalisation, bronchiectasis and fixed airflow obstruction, irrespective of whether allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is diagnosed. ABPA represents a florid response to the presence of Aspergillus spp. but up to 70% of patients with severe asthma exhibit sensitisation to different fungi without meeting the diagnostic criteria for ABPA. The presence of persistent endobronchial colonisation with fungi, especially A. fumigatus, is linked to significantly higher rates of radiological abnormalities, lower post-bronchodilator FEV1 and significantly less reversibility to short acting bronchodilators. The therapeutic benefit for antifungal intervention in severe asthma is based on the assumption that reductions in airway fungal burden may result in improvements in asthma control, lung function and symptoms (especially cough). This contention is supported by several prospective studies which demonstrate the effectiveness of antifungals for the treatment of ABPA. Significantly, these studies confirm lower toxicity of treatment with azoles versus high dose oral corticosteroid dosing regimens for ABPA. Here we review recent evidence for the role of fungi in the progression of severe asthma and provide recommendations for the use of antifungal agents in patients with severe asthma, airways fungal infection (mycosis) and fungal colonisation. Documenting fungal airways colonisation and sensitisation in those with severe asthma opens up alternative therapy options of antifungal therapy, which may be particularly valuable in low resource settings. BioMed Central 2020-11-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7646070/ /pubmed/33292524 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13601-020-00353-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Review Rapeport, W. Garth Ito, Kazuhiro Denning, David W. The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma |
title | The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma |
title_full | The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma |
title_fullStr | The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma |
title_full_unstemmed | The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma |
title_short | The role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma |
title_sort | role of antifungals in the management of patients with severe asthma |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7646070/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33292524 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13601-020-00353-8 |
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