Author:

Potenza L, Barozzi P, Vallerini D, Bosco R, Quadrelli C, Mediani L, Morselli M, Forghieri F, Volzone F, Codeluppi M, Rossi G, Tazzioli G, Venturelli C, Torelli G, Luppi M

Date: 24 April 2007

Abstract:

Correspondence; no abstract. First paragraph: Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a leading cause of infection-related mortality in hematologic patients, with death rate ranging from 50 to 90%. The reason for this extremely poor outcome is because of the difficulties in a timely and undoubted diagnosis, which still relies on a very high degree of suspicion. The current diagnostic tools are limited by invasiveness, slowness, relative insensitiveness, lack of standardization and unpredictable kinetics. The most widely studied test, Galactomannan antigenemia (GM), has been demonstrated to be highly variable in performance, with sensitivity ranging between 29 and 100%, and is affected by several factors related either to the fungus or to the host. Furthermore, the detection of Aspergillus DNA through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is still hampered by the difficulties in understanding the fungal DNA release and kinetics other than by technical barriers. For all these reasons, establishing an early diagnosis of IA remains a challenge.

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