Healthcare professionals
MIMS Learning CPD
The National Aspergillosis Centre has teamed up with MIMS to present the first online CPD course for health professionals on aspergillosis:
Diagnosis and management of aspergillosis
This CPD module for respiratory specialists outlines the diagnosis, types, and management of the respiratory disease aspergillosis, which results from exposure to the common environmental mould Aspergillus.
Search for Drug:Drug Interactions
Many prescription drugs interact if you are taking both of them. Sometimes they can make the effective dose of a drug higher, risking increased side effects and sometimes they can make it lower, risking loss of effectiveness. The can at best make a treatment ineffective and at worst make it unpleasant or even dangerous.
Drug manufacturers routinely enclose a pack note with your medication that explains many of the interactions that a drug may cause and some, like antifungal drugs, cause a lot of interaction. This means great care is needed when prescribing such drugs.
Of course, your doctor or pharmacist is the first place you should go to check if there have been any changes in your medication, but the NHS also maintain a complete list of all interactions that you can search for your medications – go the the NICE/BNF website here.
The Fungal Infection Trust have also constructed and maintain a database of interactions caused by antifungal drugs at antifungalinteractions.org
National Aspergillosis Centre: Referrals
NAC is currently sited in South Manchester at Wythenshawe Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
It is a Highly Specialised Commissioned NHS service for the diagnosis and treatment of Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis (CPA) and accepts referrals and requests for advice & guidance from all over the UK. The criteria for referral are detailed here.
NAC also provides an NHS service for other forms of aspergillosis, the criteria for referral are provided here.