[Serological tests for diagnosing fungal infections]

Considerable interest has been made in developing nonculture approaches to diagnosing fungal infections, as early diagnosis may guide appropriate treatment and prevent mortality. These approaches include detection of specific host immune responses to fungal antigens, and detection of specific macromolecular antigens using immunologic reagents. The detection of a specific host antibody response is attractive because such tests can be performed rapidly and do not require invasive sampling procedures. However, presence of host antibodies does not always correlate with presence of invasive disease, especially in patients whose abilities to produce specific immunoglobulin responses may be impeded by immunosuppressive drugs and/or serious underlying diseases. Detection of macromolecular microbial antigens generally requires a relatively large microbial burden, which may limit assay sensitivity.