ABSTRACT
The choice of the clinical specimen to be analyzed to make a diagnosis of invasive infection is a key question in medical microbiology. The development of sensitive, specific, and rapid detection methods is thus of major importance to improve diagnosis of candida infections. This chapter focuses on developments of molecular methods for invasive candidiasis and invasive aspergillosis (IA). It discusses and compares the tools that are available for molecular diagnosis of invasive fungal infections. E. E. Jaeger et al. described an assay based on a nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for fungal endophthalmitis. Moreover, biopsies of any potentially affected organ can be taken and analyzed by PCR. J. C. Bowman et al. developed a PCR to monitor disease progression and to measure the efficacy of caspofungin acetate in a murine model of disseminated aspergillosis. Various real-time PCR protocols have been developed that provide a rapid quantification of the fungal load in clinical specimens.
