![Asp[1]fumigatus](https://www.aspergillus.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Asp1fumigatus.jpg)
Date: 7 May 2013
A four day A. fumigatus culture on malt extract agar (above). Light microscopy pictures are taken at 1000x mag., stained with lacto-phenol cotton blue (right).
Copyright:
With thanks to Niall Hamilton.
Notes:
Colonies on CYA 40-60 mm diam, plane or lightly wrinkled, low, dense and velutinous or with a sparse, floccose overgrowth; mycelium inconspicuous, white; conidial heads borne in a continuous, densely packed layer, Greyish Turquoise to Dark Turquoise (24-25E-F5); clear exudate sometimes produced in small amounts; reverse pale or greenish. Colonies on MEA 40-60 mm diam, similar to those on CYA but less dense and with conidia in duller colours (24-25E-F3); reverse uncoloured or greyish. Colonies on G25N less than 10 mm diam, sometimes only germination, of white mycelium. No growth at 5°C. At 37°C, colonies covering the available area, i.e. a whole Petri dish in 2 days from a single point inoculum, of similar appearance to those on CYA at 25°C, but with conidial columns longer and conidia darker, greenish grey to pure grey.
Conidiophores borne from surface hyphae, stipes 200-400 µm long, sometimes sinuous, with colourless, thin, smooth walls, enlarging gradually into pyriform vesicles; vesicles 20-30 µm diam, fertile over half or more of the enlarged area, bearing phialides only, the lateral ones characteristically bent so that the tips are approximately parallel to the stipe axis; phialides crowded, 6-8 µm long; conidia spherical to subspheroidal, 2.5-3.0 µm diam, with finely roughened or spinose walls, forming radiate heads at first, then well defined columns of conidia.
Distinctive features
This distinctive species can be recognised in the unopened Petri dish by its broad, velutinous, bluish colonies bearing characteristic, well defined columns of conidia. Growth at 37°C is exceptionally rapid. Conidial heads are also diagnostic: pyriform vesicles bear crowded phialides which bend to be roughly parallel to the stipe axis. Care should be exercised in handling cultures of this species.
Images library
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High resolution CT scan images with reconstruction of 1mm thick slices at approximately 10mm increments. The scan shows moderately severe multi-lobar cylindrical and varicose bronchiectasis predominantly centrally and in the upper lungs. There is no mucus plugging seen.
The features are in keeping with allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis
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pt.SB – 6/10/98 – bronchocentric granulomatosis. CT scan showing multiple small nodules of variable size in both lung fields, apparently close to the vascular bundles.
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Bronchial oedema.Remarkably oedematous bronchial mucosa, as seen in ABPA.
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An example of longstanding allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis in a patient who has been steroid dependent for over 15 years showing remarkable kyphoscoliosis and honey combing and fibrosis of both lungs.
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Recurrent pulmonary shadows 1. 6 Jan 1988 – chest radiograph showing right hilar enlargement, consistent with ABPA.
Recurrent pulmonary shadows 1. 3 Feb 1989 – chest radiograph showing right upper-lobe consolidation and contraction consistent with obstruction of RUL bronchus, in ABPA.
Clearing of pulmonary shadows 3, pt BJ. 5 April 1989 – resolution of shadows seen in February, with a course of corticosteroids.
Recurrence of pulmonary shadows 4, pt BJ. 2 September 1989 – recurrence of pulmonary shadows with an exacerbation of ABPA.
Central bronchiectasis, pt BJ. CT scan of thorax October 1989 showing central bronchiectasis, characteristic of ABPA (and cystic fibrosis).
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