Early diagnosis of fungal infections and the implementation of appropriate treatment represent major issues for clinicians, nowadays. Histopathological demonstration of microorganisms in tissue specimens or growth of fungal agents in culture media is still considered the "gold standard", but obtaining such specimens may be difficult. Several groups have investigated serological assays for cell wall elements unique to fungal organisms in serum or other body fluids to improve diagnostics in patients with haematological malignancies or undergoing haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. In this review we have concentrated on the currently available assays allowing for detection of highly immunogenic components of fungal cell wall: galactomannan, mannan, and also (1-->3)-beta-D-glucan. Rapid serological tests appear to be useful for screening high-risk haematological patients, since they allow for the early diagnosis of invasive fungal infections, including infections with the most common pathogens such as Aspergillus and Candida. Based on current literature, factors increasing the probability of obtaining false-positive or false-negative results detected by each test were also analysed and tabulated.

Discrepancies in antibiotic sensitivity pattern were observed among S. aureus strains colonizing different sites of AD skin (lesional and nonlesional areas), and also in AD patients with prior antibiotic treatment. Therefore, clinicians should consider repeat microbial susceptibility testing on different body sites of patients with AD when clinically indicated.

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BackgroundMicrobiological diagnosis of sepsis relies primarily on blood culture data. This study compares four diagnostic methods, i.e. those developed by us: nested, multiplex, qPCR (qPCR) and FISH with commercial methods: SeptiFast (Roche) (SF) and BacT/ALERT® 3D blood culture system (bioMérieux). Blood samples were derived from adult patients with clinical symptoms of sepsis, according to SIRS criteria, hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit.ResultsUsing qPCR, FISH, SF, and culture, microbial presence was found in 71.8%, 29.6%, 25.3%, and 36.6% of samples, respectively. It was demonstrated that qPCR was significantly more likely to detect microorganisms than the remaining methods; qPCR confirmed the results obtained with the SF kit in all cases wherein bacteria were detected with simultaneous confirmation of Gram-typing. All data collected through the FISH method were corroborated by qPCR.ConclusionsThe qPCR and FISH methods described in this study may constitute alternatives to blood culture and to the few existing commercial molecular assays since they enable the detection of the majority of microbial species, and the qPCR method allows their identification in a higher number of samples than the SF test. FISH made it possible to show the presence of microbes in a blood sample even before its culture.