Aspergillus antigen testing

Aspergillus galactomannan antigen testing was performed as usual before, during and after reconstruction. For patients with hematologic disease, Aspergillus galactomannan antigen was examined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (SRL, Tokyo, Japan) at most once a week when fungal infection was suspected because of lung nodules or a fever of unknown origin. We defined a result as positive if the Aspergillus galactomannan antigen value was >0.5 COI and determined the maximum value from a series of data during the course of infection as the final value for the patient.

The data are shown as the positive rates and the mean±standard deviation (SD) of Aspergillus antigen. For positive patients, the values were calculated as the mean of testing of all hematology wards for 3 months. Statistical analyses were performed using the EZR software program (12). Intergroup comparisons were assessed by the chi-squared test or the unpaired t-test. p values <0.05 were considered statistically significant. This study was approved by the Toyama Prefectural Central Hospital ethics committee (Approval No. 5126).