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Introduction to Clinical Mycology

Part One



Laboratory Diagnosis of Fungal Infections

Slide 3

November 2011

I think we periodically need to think of why we are working in the field that we are in and that is to support patient care. A lot of activities go on behind the scenes that we are not aware of for the most part. One is that a patient with some symptoms of something, whether it is a fungal infection or something else, and for our purposes we will say it is a fungal infection, will come in with signs and symptoms of infection. The clinician has to decide what he or she suspects might be the problem, ask pertinent questions like a history of travel and then investigate the immune status of the person because fungal infections take advantage of people who are immunosupressed. They then have to decide if they are going to culture something and they select the appropriate specimen for that. They have to order a direct microscopic examination if they think it is appropriate so that we can make a rapid diagnosis in some instances. And then sometimes it even goes a lot further than that where they involve an invasive procedure like bronchoscopy or a fine needle biopsy or something like that.

Laboratory Diagnosis of Fungal Infections
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