Zegleń S, Sioła M, Woźniak-Grygiel E, Łaszewska A, Sindera P, Wojarski J, Ochman M, Kucewicz E, Karolak W, Szewczyk M, Zembala M
Departament and Clinic of Cardiac Surgery and Transplantology, Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases, Zabrze, Poland.
Transplant Proc. 2011 Oct;43(8):3089-91. doi: 10.1016/j.transproceed.2011.08.057.
This publication attempted to evaluate the frequency of mold colonization and infection and the procalcitonin serum concentrations (PCT) among lung transplant recipients.
We included 49 patients (36 males and 13 females) of mean age at transplantation of 47.1±13.6 years. Molds were isolated using routine microbiologic methods. PCT (ng/mL) was measured using an immunoluminescence assay with values below 0.5 showing no probability of infection, 0.5 to 2.0, a moderate infection risk; 2.0 to 10, a high infection risk; and above 10 high sepsis risk.
Twenty-four (49%) patients revealed the presence of molds in material from the lower respiratory tract (sputum, tracheal, or tracheobronchial aspirate), mini-bronchoalveolar lavage. Aspergillus species was isolated in 14 (28.6%) patients, Penicillium in 7 (14.3%) patients, and Zygomycetes fungi in 9 (18.4%) patients. The average PCT value from 61 examinations of PCT during fungal isolation was 0.5±0.7 ng/mL. However, when the studied group was categorized according to the PCT range, the rates for the groups were no infection (n=30; 49.2%), moderate (n=20; 32.8%), high (n=9; 14.8%) and high sepsis risk (n=2; 3.3%).
The mold colonization of transplanted lung is a frequent complication and should be considered even in the case of proper prophylaxis. Procalcitonin might be the marker helpful in mold infection diagnosis.
