Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis: a case report and comment on reliability of testing sources

A case of allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is presented. Difficulty in establishing the diagnosis occurred because of a false-negative precipitin result obtained from a commercial laboratory. This would seem to support the contention that the paucity of ABPA cases reported in the United States is secondary to the low potency and variable composition of commercial antigens available for skin tests and immunodiffusion, resulting in false-negative skin and precipitin tests. Furthermore, positive tests to species of Aspergillus other than fumigatus heretofore considered non-pathogenic must now be considered as possible etiologic explanations.