Background and purpose: Invasive aspergillosis, is a serious fatal disease caused by fungal species of Aspergillus in patients with neutropenia, bone marrow transplant recipients, patients with blood disorders, chronic granulomatous disease, recipients of long-term steroids or antibiotics. Galactomannan antigen (GM) is a polysaccharide of Aspergillus present in the cell wall of Aspergillus spp. which is released during the growth and invasion of fungi to hyphae tissue. The prevalence of invasive aspergillosis is between 1-15% and the mortality rate will increase to more than 90% if diagnosis is delayed. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out within a year to investigate the GM antigen serum in patients with hematologic malignancies in oncology ward of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Sari and recipients of bone marrow transplant in Shariati Hospital, Tehran. Six ml blood was collected from 62 patients and serum stored at -20°C until examination. The GM antigene of serum was obtained through ELISA using Platelia™ Aspergillus EIA kit. GM Assays were classified as positive when the optical density ratio was >0.5. Results: The patients were 40 male and 22 female. The highest mortality rate was seen in patients with ALL (31.2%), AML and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (25%), and Hodgkin's lymphoma (12.5%). The GM test was found positive in 16 patients (22%) with optical density of >0.5. According to the revised guidelines of EORTC/MSG, 18 patients (29%) suffered from IA of whom 5 cases (28%) were probable and 13 cases (72%) were possible. Sensitivity and specificity of this test was 90% and 61%, respectively. Conclusion: The ELISA is a valuable diagnostic method to detect Aspergillus antigen in the blood, which could be used as a useful and important screening test to identify patients at risk.

Keywords: Galactomannan antigen, Invasive aspergillosis, bone marrow transplant recipients, hematologic malignancy

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