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Symptoms of exogenous allergic alveolitis
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
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Acute symptoms of exogenous allergic alveolitis occur 4-6 hours after contact with the causative antigen. There is a short-term increase in body temperature to high numbers, chills, weakness, malaise, pain in the limbs. Cough is paroxysmal with difficult to separate sputum, dyspnea of a mixed nature at rest and increases with physical exertion. Remote wheezing, cyanosis of the skin and mucous membranes are noted. During examination, attention is drawn to the absence of any signs of an infectious disease (primarily acute respiratory viral infection - the absence of hyperemia of the mucous membranes of the pharynx, tonsils, etc.). Percussion sound over the lungs with a box shade, its dullness is often detected. Auscultation reveals scattered dry whistling rales, along with which various moist rales, including gentle, crepitating, so-called "cellophane" rales, are heard. Clinical analysis of peripheral blood reveals leukocytosis, eosinophilia, and sometimes an increased ESR.
In the subacute and chronic phases of the disease, the leading symptoms are dyspnea and cough with the separation of mucous sputum, periodically audible crepitating wheezing. The most typical is the progressive increase in respiratory failure due to the growth of fibrosis in the lungs and diffuse-distributive, restrictive disorders: fatigue, poor tolerance of physical activity, loss of appetite and weight loss, the appearance of "drumsticks", chest deformations (flattening).
ABPA is characterized by the production of a specific brown sputum, which, when cultured, reveals the mold fungus Aspergillus, persistent eosinophilia of the blood and sputum, and the formation of proximal bronchiectasis.
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