Submitted by ROrritt on 22 November 2017
Invasive fungal diseases including invasive aspergillosis are an important consideration for severely immunocompromised patients. A group of researchers from Austria described their experiences of computed tomography (CT) guided percutaneous lung biopsies for diagnosing invasive fungal disease, in a recent study published in the journal ‘Infection’.
By analysing records for this procedure from over ten years (2671 guided lung biopsies; 179 with suspected filamentous fungal infection from previous CT) the authors were able to describe the incidence of various infections in patients who underwent the procedure, and evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of this method.
They concluded that CT guided percutaneous lung biopsies were an effective diagnostic tool, although the procedure was not evaluated against a comparator such as broncho-alveolar lavage.
They also commented that this procedure has a tolerable risk, noting that complications were rare (only 2 bleeding complications in the whole patient series) and that performing the technique whilst the patient is in the ipsilateral dependent position may further decrease risk.
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