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Novel Photodynamic Therapy of Emerging and Re-emerging Medically Important Viruses

TEM PCR Enhances Infectious Disease Diagnosis

In the last two decades, there has been an increase in incidence of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA), resulting in extremely high morbidity and mortality rates, as a result of the intense use of chemotherapic and immunosuppressive agents, especially in immunocompromised patients and, among these, hemato-oncologic and bone marrow transplanted patients. Such fungal infections are caused by some species of the genus Aspergillus, where A. fumigatus has been the most frequent species isolated from human infections. A key factor for the increased incidence of IPA is the inability to establish early definitive diagnosis aimed to initiate prompt and specific antifungal therapy, which would ensure favorable prognosis for these patients. In this work, 37 blood samples were studied, mostly with clinical diagnosis for acute myeloid leukemia. The main goal of this study was to compare a standard immunological test (detection of galactomannan antigen) with the molecular nested-PCR test, in order to determine which one offers more sensitive and specific outcomes.