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PCR as a Screening Test for Invasive Aspergillosis in Haematological Patients: A Pilot Study

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Abstract

Invasive aspergillosis is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients, particularly in individuals with haematological malignancy and in haematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients. Nowadays, the galactomannan (GM) assay has been widely used as an indication of invasive aspergillosis, even though the test is known to generate false-positive results. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of GM and real-time PCR (qPCR) to detected Aspergillus in blood samples obtained from high-risk haematological patients. Haematological patients were screened twice weekly with GM testing, which was performed by the Platelia ELISA kit. An additional sample of whole blood (4 ml) was obtained for the purpose of qPCR testing. Sixty-four samples from 12 patients with haematopoietic stem cell transplant or haematological malignancy were studied. The overall accordance between GM and qPCR tests was 96.9 % (62 samples). Only two samples showed contradictory results, with positive GM test and negative real-time PCR results. Based on the high concordance between GM and qPCR in terms of negative results, the main utility of qPCR could be in the confirmation of positive results seen with GM testing.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Ministério da Saúde/PPSUS/FAPERJ grants.

Conflict of interest

In the past 5 years, Dr Pasqualotto has received research grants and given paid talks for Pfizer, MSD, Astellas, United Medical (Gilead) and Bagó. All other authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Thomas Victor Maciel da Silva, Lilian Carla Carneiro, Francine dos Santos Ramos, Ludmila Fiorenzano Baethgen, Cintia Tusset & Alessandro C. Pasqualotto

  2. Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Alessandra Aparecida Paz, Daniela Zilio Larentis & Liane Esteves Daudt

  3. Laboratório de Micologia Celular e Proteômica, Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Leila Maria Lopes-Bezerra

  4. Molecular Biology Laboratory, Santa Casa de Misericordia de Porto Alegre, Av Independência 155, 8º andar, 90035-074, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Alessandro C. Pasqualotto

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  1. Thomas Victor Maciel da Silva
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  2. Lilian Carla Carneiro
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  3. Francine dos Santos Ramos
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  4. Ludmila Fiorenzano Baethgen
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  5. Alessandra Aparecida Paz
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  6. Daniela Zilio Larentis
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  7. Liane Esteves Daudt
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  8. Cintia Tusset
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  9. Leila Maria Lopes-Bezerra
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  10. Alessandro C. Pasqualotto
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Correspondence to Alessandro C. Pasqualotto.

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da Silva, T.V.M., Carneiro, L.C., dos Santos Ramos, F. et al. PCR as a Screening Test for Invasive Aspergillosis in Haematological Patients: A Pilot Study. Mycopathologia 177, 111–114 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11046-013-9718-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11046-013-9718-0

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