Pulmonary aspergilloma management: 5 years of experience from a tertiary hospital

Introduction
Pulmonary aspergilloma (PA) is a chronic lung infection. Lobectomy is the recommended surgical modality. However, recent studies have suggested that wedge resection may be better than lobectomy.

Aim
We compared short-term complications and mortality according to surgical methods in pulmonary aspergilloma.

Material and methods
In this study, we analyzed the patients diagnosed with PA in the period 2015–2019 at a tertiary hospital. We obtained the data about the age, gender, smoking history, symptoms, radiological findings, operation technique, complications, length of hospital stay, and mortality from the electronic patient files. Then we compared short-term complications and mortality according to surgical methods in PA.

Results
Of a total of 27 PA patients, 22 (81.5%) were male, with a mean age of 48.1 ±15.6 years. The most common symptom was dyspnea (48.1%). Nineteen (70.0%) of the patients had wedge resection and 6 (22.3%) of the patients had a lobectomy. Prolonged air leak and empyema were the most common postoperative complications. Prolonged air leak was significantly more common in lobectomy than in wedge resection (p = 0.046). There was no significant difference in other complications, hospital stay length, intensive care unit stay length or mortality between lobectomy and wedge resection.

Conclusions
Wedge resection can be safely performed in aspergilloma. Prolonged air leak was less common in wedge resection than in lobectomy.