Objective Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is characterized by anexaggerated reaction to airway colonization aspergillus which affects patients with underlying diseases such asbronchial asthma, cystic fibrosis or other respiratory diseases. ABPA exhibit significant heterogeneity due to theunderlying diseases. The clinical features of patients with ABPA were analyzed retrospectively, so as to explore theimpact of underlying diseases on clinical characteristics. Methods The clinical data of hospitalized patients diagnosed with ABPA from January 2010 to September 2019 in Peking University People's Hospital were reviewed for retrospective analysis. Results A total of 40 ABPA patients were enrolled. Of which 8 cases (20.0%) were previously diagnosed as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and/or bronchiectasis, named non-asthma group; while the other 32 cases met the diagnosis criteria of asthma, named asthma group. The non-asthma ABPA patients had a shorter course [78 (6 - 300) months vs. 192 (39 - 480) months, P=0.02], a higher percentage of peripheral blood neutrophils (79.9%±12.5% vs. 68.1%±18.1%, P=0.01) and higher score of emphysema [2 (0 - 2) vs. 0 (0 - 1), P=0.02] than the asthma group. Conclusions There is no significant difference in clinical and radiological characteristics between ABPA patients without asthma and those with asthma. The diagnosis of ABPA should also be considered when patients with chronic pulmonary diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchiectasis have aggravation of dyspnea, increase of eosinophils in peripheral blood and typical imaging features such as mucus attenuation.
