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Antifungal susceptibility testing by flow cytometry: is it the future?
Luís André Vale-Silva1, Vladimír Buchta
1Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Charles University, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic. luisandrevale.silva@faf.cuni.cz
Mycoses
|June 21, 2006
Summary
Antifungal susceptibility testing (AST) is crucial due to rising fungal infections and drug resistance. Flow cytometry offers a faster alternative to traditional methods, but requires more validation for clinical use.
Area of Science:
- Mycology
- Clinical Microbiology
- Antimicrobial Resistance
Background:
- Increasing prevalence and significance of fungal infections globally.
- Emergence of antifungal drug resistance necessitates robust antifungal susceptibility testing (AST).
- Established AST methods by CLSI and EUCAST ensure reproducibility but require lengthy incubation periods (24-48 hours).
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the potential of flow cytometry (FC) as a rapid and effective method for AST.
- To address the limitations of current standard AST methodologies, particularly long incubation times.
Main Methods:
- Review of reported applications of flow cytometric techniques for AST of yeasts and moulds.
- Analysis of individual fungal cell characteristics using flow cytometry.
- Focus on techniques utilizing short incubation times (a few hours).
Main Results:
- Flow cytometry has demonstrated successful application in AST for both yeasts and moulds over the past 15 years.
- FC techniques analyze a large number of fungal cells individually, enabling rapid results.
- Short incubation times are a key advantage of FC-based AST.
Conclusions:
- Flow cytometry shows significant potential for clinical utility in AST in the near future due to its speed.
- Further data collection on reproducibility and correlation with clinical outcomes is essential for practical validation.
- Widespread clinical adoption of FC for AST is pending comprehensive validation studies.