Is the Prevalence of Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis Greater in Severe Asthma?

Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is thought to occur more frequently in severe than in mild asthma. However, there are no precise data to support this hypothesis.

To determine the prevalence of ABPA in subjects with varying asthma severity.

We conducted a secondary analysis of prospectively collected data from 543 adult asthma subjects classified according to the 2004 Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines. The asthma severity was categorized into mild, moderate, and severe. We report the prevalence of ABPA in each asthma category. We also performed multivariable logistic regression analysis to identify factors associated with ABPA in subjects with asthma.

We classified 81 (15%), 257 (47%), and 205 (38%) subjects as mild, moderate, and severe asthma. We diagnosed ABPA in 106 (19.5%) subjects. The prevalence of ABPA was 11.1% (9 of 81) in mild, 21% (54 of 257) in moderate, and 20.7% (43 of 205) in severe asthma (P = .12). Multivariable analysis identified age and asthma duration as significant factors associated with ABPA, whereas asthma severity was not significantly associated.

The prevalence of ABPA does not vary significantly with the severity of asthma. These findings support the revised International Society of Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM) ABPA working group (AWG) recommendation for screening all asthma patients for ABPA, irrespective of asthma severity. Further large-scale studies across different geographic regions are warranted to validate these findings.