Table 1—

Value of different diagnostic methods in invasive pulmonary aspergillosis

	Sensitivity	Specificity	Comments
Thoracic CT scan
Halo/air crescent	>80	60–98	Specificity only assessed in a few studies, findings depend on the disease stage
Serum
Galactomannan Antigen
Latex agglutination (Pastorex®)	13–95	86–100	Cross reactivity against penicillium
ELISA (Platelia®)	90–93	95–98	ppv 87–93, npv 95–98,
			False positive rate 8–14
			To measure 1–3 times weekly
BDG-ELISA	16–90	76–100,	ppv 59, npv 97
PCR	100,	65–92,	ppv 15–44, npv 100
			Useful to exclude aspergillus
Bronchoscopy with BAL
Culture	43	100	Use of Sabouard medium preferred
Galactomannan antigen	0–80	65–95	Highly variable results
PCR	67–100	55–95,	ppv 20–46, npv 93–100
			Useful to exclude aspergillus