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The role of flow cytometry in medical mycology

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Abstract

The alarming increase in fungal diseases among hospitalized patients is a serious problem as these infections often have poor prognosis because of delayed diagnosis and lack of proper therapy. The rapid laboratory diagnosis of these diseases still remains problematic. The areas of concern include accurate identification of pathogenic fungi, rapid testing of their susceptibility to antifungals, and reliable determination of their interrelatedness to other clinical isolates. In the past few decades, flow cytometry has proven to be an adaptive technology platform for diagnostics. The applications encompass identification, serotyping, genotyping, susceptibility testing, and molecular pathogenesis studies. The recent revolution in the miniaturizing and customizing of instrumentation has now made this technology more accessible and affordable. In the near future, it is imperative to develop standardized protocols by means of interlaboratory comparisons and to share reagents for reproducibility studies. Flow cytometry remains highly attractive as an integrated application for myriad tasks in medical mycology laboratories.

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  1. Mycology Laboratory, Wadsworth Center, 120 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, NY, 12208, USA

    Vishnu Chaturvedi

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  1. Vishnu Chaturvedi
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Correspondence to Vishnu Chaturvedi.

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Chaturvedi, V. The role of flow cytometry in medical mycology. Curr Fungal Infect Rep 2, 143–148 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12281-008-0021-3

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