Introduction: The delay in diagnosis and management of cerebral aspergillosis leads to high mortality. The major challenges include low recognition of the disease, long turnaround time, and low sensitivity of available diagnostic modalities, and absence of standardized molecular diagnosis. Management is also suboptimal due to lack of optimal surgical strategies, the emergence of antifungal resistance, and poor penetration of antifungal drugs into the brain parenchyma. This article emphasizes new modalities for early diagnosis and optimal management that may improve outcomes.
Area covered: We searched the PubMed and Embase databases (since 2015 till 31 March 2025) using the terms 'cerebral aspergillosis,' 'diagnosis ca,' 'management ca,' and 'treatment ca.' The search was augmented by reviewing the references of those articles.
Expert opinion: Early diagnosis may be achieved by high index of suspicion, neuroimaging, stereotactic brain biopsy, and the use of galactomannan in serum and cerebrospinal fluid. Whole-genome sequencing and detection of cell-free nucleic acid can improve diagnostic capabilities. Surgical debridement of infected tissue will reduce disease burden and allow enhanced antifungal drug penetration. Voriconazole, posaconazole, and isavuconazole are recommended as primary therapy and therapeutic drug monitoring guided higher doses of azoles may improve outcomes. Olorofim and fosmanogepix are promising agents for the future.
Keywords: Cerebral aspergillosis; biomarker; conventional diagnosis; imaging; new antifungal; treatment.