Coronavirus Disease 2019-Associated Pulmonary Aspergillosis

Abstract

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, a new disease, COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA), is on the rise. CAPA is a secondary fungal infection in patients with critical COVID-19 receiving mechanical ventilation in intensive care units (ICUs). Although the incidence rate of CAPA is estimated to be 10.2% in ICU patients, CAPA appears to be associated with an increase in overall mortality. CAPA is like classical invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) but has an ambiguous clinical manifestation and occurs without typical host factors. It is also like influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis but differs in clinical characteristics. For research and clinical practice, the European Confederation for Medical Mycology and the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology proposed novel case definition criteria for CAPA. Although CAPA management is not much different from typical IPA, areas of uncertainty remain that require further investigation.