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Current Infectious Disease Reports
Published in: Current Infectious Disease Reports 6/2010

01-11-2010

In Vitro Susceptibility Testing in Fungi: What is its Role in Clinical Practice?

Authors: Susanne Perkhofer, Cornelia Mrazek, Lukas Hartl, Cornelia Lass-Flörl

Published in: Current Infectious Disease Reports | Issue 6/2010

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Abstract

An increasing number of patients are undergoing transplantation procedures or receiving aggressive immunosuppression and chemotherapy. The growing population of immunocompromised hosts has led to a rise in the prevalence of invasive fungal infections due to yeasts and molds. The introduction of new antifungal agents and recent reports of resistance emerging during treatment of fungal infections have highlighted the need for in vitro susceptibility testing. Various testing procedures have been proposed, including macrodilution and microdilution, agar diffusion, disk diffusion, and Etest (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweden). Establishing clinical correlation with antifungal susceptibility testing, however, is a huge challenge because susceptibility techniques do not take into account the dynamic and complex biology of fungi exposed to an antifungal in vivo. This paper reviews the available methods for antifungal susceptibility testing of yeasts and filamentous fungi and the data regarding the clinical implications of in vitro testing.
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Metadata
Title
In Vitro Susceptibility Testing in Fungi: What is its Role in Clinical Practice?
Authors
Susanne Perkhofer
Cornelia Mrazek
Lukas Hartl
Cornelia Lass-Flörl
Publication date
01-11-2010
Publisher
Current Science Inc.
Published in
Current Infectious Disease Reports / Issue 6/2010
Print ISSN: 1523-3847
Electronic ISSN: 1534-3146
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11908-010-0134-z

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