ArticleClinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases2016
Aspergillus PCR in serum for the diagnosis, follow-up and prognosis of invasive aspergillosis in neutropenic and nonneutropenic patients.
Article in Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 96 citations in OpenAlex.
- Polymerase chain reaction blood tests for the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis in immunocompromised people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Microbiological Laboratory Testing in the Diagnosis of Fungal Infections in Pulmonary and Critical Care Practice. An Official American Thoracic Society Clinical Practice Guideline.American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine · 2019Guideline
- Sputum signatures for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in patients with underlying respiratory diseases (SPARED): study protocol for a prospective diagnostic trial.BMC infectious diseases · 2018Trial
- Evaluation of a commercial quantitative Aspergillus fumigatus-specific IgM assay for the diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis.Medicine · 2017Trial
- Invasive Aspergillosis Complicating Severe COVID-19: Cumulative Incidence, Risk Factors, and Outcomes Between the First Wave of the Pandemic and Subsequent Waves, According to the ECMM/ISHAM Classification and a Local Case Assessment.Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Fungal diagnostic stewardship in immunocompromised populations: a focus on molds and dimorphic fungi.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Non-invasive diagnosis of invasive fungal disease with cell-free DNA PCR.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2026Review
- Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes of Invasive Aspergillosis in Patients with Hematological Malignancies and Transplantation and Cellular Therapies in the Contemporary Era.Mycopathologia · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the Prognostic Value of PCR Cycle Threshold and Mortality in Pulmonary Aspergillosis: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Infection and drug resistance · 2026Article
- Emerging Risk Factors for Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis: A Narrative Review.Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Pentraxin-3 as a novel prognostic biomarker in non-neutropenic invasive pulmonary aspergillosis patients.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Article
- Breaking the mould: challenging the status quo of clinical trial response definitions for invasive fungal diseases-a debate.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2024Article
- Article
- Dynamics and prognostic value of plasma cell-free DNA PCR in patients with invasive aspergillosis and mucormycosis.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2024Article
- Nucleic-Acid-Based Molecular Fungal Diagnostics: A Way to a Better Future.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Clinical Implementation ofJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Review
- A Multiplex PCR and DNA-Sequencing Workflow on Serum for the Diagnosis and Species Identification for Invasive Aspergillosis and Mucormycosis.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2023Article
- Noninvasive Testing and Surrogate Markers in Invasive Fungal Diseases.Open forum infectious diseases · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We evaluated the usefulness of a serum Aspergillus PCR assay for the diagnosis and prognosis of invasive aspergillosis in a study involving 941 patients for a total of 5146 serum samples. Fifty-one patients had proven/probable aspergillosis. We compared galactomannan (GM), PCR and mycologic analysis of pulmonary samples in both neutropenic and nonneutropenic patients. PCR performed in serum yielded 66.7% sensitivity, 98.7% specificity, 75.6% positive predictive value and 98.0% negative predictive value, while the GM index yielded 78.4% sensitivity, 87.5% specificity, 27% positive predictive value and 98.6% negative predictive value. The inclusion of PCR in the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and the Mycosis Study Group (MSG) mycologic criteria permitted the reclassification of nine other cases from possible to probable aspergillosis and increased the sensitivity to 71.7%. Combining the GM index with serum PCR increased the detection rate of invasive aspergillosis with 88.2% sensitivity. PCR was systematically negative in 16 patients with noninvasive forms of aspergillosis (namely aspergilloma and chronic aspergillosis). Remaining PCR positive after a period of 14 to 20 days of treatment was related to poor outcome at 30 and 90 days. Our results also indicate that, unlike the determination of the GM index, the initial fungus load as determined by PCR was highly predictive of 90-day mortality, with the rate of the latter being 15.8% for patients with <150 copies/mL vs. 73.2% for patients at or above that cutoff (p <0.0001). Therefore, PCR appears to be a powerful and interesting tool for the identification of patients with invasive aspergillosis who might benefit from more intense care.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.