Differences in the clinical characteristics of chronic pulmonary aspergillosis according to spirometric impairment

Abstract

The clinical features by declining lung function remain uncharacterized in chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) patients. We investigated the clinical characteristics of CPA patients based on spirometric impairments (restrictive spirometric pattern [RSP] and obstructive spirometric pattern [OSP]) and their severity. We retrospectively analyzed medical records of CPA patients who underwent pulmonary function tests from March 2017 to February 2020. We used Global Lung Initiative 2012 equations with lower limit of normal. The clinical characteristics of patients with RSP were compared to those with OSP. Additionally, RSP patients’ characteristics were analyzed according to forced vital capacity (FVC) tertile, and OSP patients’ characteristics were analyzed according to forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) tertile. Among the 112 patients with CPA (52 [46%] with RSP and 60 [54%] with OSP), body mass index (BMI) was significantly lower in patients with RSP than in those with OSP (17.6 kg/m2 versus 20.3 kg/m2; P = 0.003), and non-tuberculous mycobacterial disease was more frequently observed in patients with RSP than in those with OSP (28.8% versus 11.7%; P = 0.004). Additionally, for patients with RSP, younger age and bilateral pulmonary lesions were more frequently observed in the first tertile group than in the other groups (P for trend: 0.025 and 0.001, respectively). For patients with OSP, low BMI, paracavitary infiltrates, and elevated WBC count were more frequently observed in the first tertile group than in the other groups (P for trend: < 0.001, 0.011, and 0.041, respectively). Differences in the clinical features of CPA patients were identified according to heterogeneous spirometric patterns and their severity. Further studies are needed to investigate the clinical significance of these findings.