Molecular Characterization and Antifungal Susceptibility of <i>Aspergillus</i> spp. among Patients with Underlying Lung Diseases

Background. Pulmonary aspergillosis is a lung infection caused by Aspergillus spp., which can cause severe illnesses in immunocompromised patients with underlying lung disease or who have asthma and inhale their spores. This study aimed to screen the antifungal susceptibility of Aspergillus spp. isolated from patients with underlying pulmonary infections and characterize the isolates using PCR and sequencing. Method. Three hundred and eighty-four sputum or bronchoalveolar lavage samples were collected and processed for the isolation and identification, and characterization of Aspergillus species and molecular amplification of the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region by the PCR and Sanger sequencing method. Antifungal susceptibility tests for itraconazole and voriconazole were performed using the E-test. Result. The overall results revealed that out of 384 patients, 32 (8.3%) were positive for fungal growth, including 28 (87.5%) Aspergillus spp. The highest resistance rate (100 and 44.4%) was obtained from itraconazole against A. niger and A. fumigatus. In contrast, voriconazole revealed the best activities against all tested fungi compared to itraconazole. All A. flavus were sensitive to voriconazole, while only 54.5% were sensitive to itraconazole. The MICs of E-test for Aspergillus spp were 1.6 ± 1.8 and 0.6 ± 0.93 for itraconazole and voriconazole, respectively. Conclusions. The prevalence of aspergillosis was high, with a significant association with underlying lung diseases. Voriconazole was the drug of choice for isolated fungi