الفهرس 
Acknowledgement
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Abstract
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 patients suffering from different pulmonary diseases. They were either admitted at the chest department or attended to chest diseases outpatient’s clinic at Sohag university hospital during study durations. Full history of patients was recorded using predesigned questionnaire sheet. The patients included 3 groups: A. Asthmatic patients’ group who were in the age range of 17–68 years, with mean age 42.32±13.85 years, out of them 48 were female and 20 were males. B. Bronchiectasis patients group included 29 patients who were in the age range of 18-62 years, with mean age 48.17±10.65 years, out of them 18 were males and 11 were females. C. Lung cancer patients included 23 patients, out of them 18 were males and 5 were females. The age range of patients was between 43 and 67 years with mean age at presentation being 54.61±6.69. Risk factors associated with pulmonary aspergillosis and significantly affecting the infection rate and total fungal count between three groups of patients were assessed and as following: A- In asthmatic patients’ group, the most important risk factors which significantly affected the disease, and the total fungal count were age, smoking, prolonged use of antibiotic, use of corticosteroid drugs, prolonged hospital admission, diabetes mellitus, old tb, allergic rhinitis.
Summary
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B- In bronchiectasis patients’ group, the most important risk factors which were significantly affected patients were prolonged hospital admission, use of corticosteroid drugs, prolonged use of antibiotics. Smoking was significantly affected aspergillosis infection but wasn’t significantly affected the total fungal count in this study group(P<0.05). Other risk factors among positive cases of patients were not significant (P<0.05) like diabetes mellitus, hemoptysis and old tb. C- In lung cancer patients’ group, the most important risk factors were age, smoking, old T.B, cancer. Although according to statistical analysis most of these factors not significantly affected the pulmonary aspergillosis infection. The results of statistical analysis showed there was no difference between male and female in infection rate among three different patients’ groups. According to statistical analysis, there was no significant differences in the disease rate or the total fungal count among the three studied groups of patients. The patients were investigated for pulmonary aspergillosis by collecting sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and blood specimens from patients and culturing on SDA medium. The isolation results showed the incidence of four Aspergillus species which could be causes of pulmonary aspergillosis which were A. niger, A. fumigatus, A. flavus and A. terreus In sputum specimens, A. niger was the most predominant species accounting for 45% of all fungal isolates followed by A. fumigatus, A. flavus and A. terreus with 26%, 16% and 13% respectively.