TITLE:
Revision on the Recent Diagnostic Strategies of Fungal Infections
AUTHORS:
Amina Mostafa Abd El-Aal, Noha El-Mashad, Al-Shaymaa Nasr Mohamed
KEYWORDS:
Fungal Infections, Conventional Diagnostic Techniques, Mannan, MALDI-TOF MS, Molecular Diagnostic Techniques
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Medical Microbiology,
Vol.7 No.1,
March
14,
2017
ABSTRACT: Many invasive fungal diseases have no characteristic signs or symptoms, and may
give negative blood cultures; therefore, clinician may decide to start empirical
antifungal therapy particularly in high risk patient (e.g., hematopoietic stem
cell transplant, solid
organ transplant, and
AIDS patients). This
increases the incidence of appearance of resistant fungal strains to antifungal
drugs. Traditional methods for diagnosis such as wet mount examination and
microbiological cultures remain the gold standard methods for fungal disease
diagnosis. However, they are time-consuming, insensitive, and have a limited impact on clinical
decision-making. Significant progress has recently achieved in diagnostic tools
of fungal disease. Antigen and antibody based assays, molecular techniques, and
MALDI TOF spectrometry technique and nanotechnology offer more rapid, sensitive
and accurate results.