title: Current laboratory diagnosis of Q fever.
abstract: Q fever is a worldwide zoonosis caused by the strictly intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii. Among symptomatic patients (one-half of patients remain asymptomatic), acute Q fever most frequently manifests as a self-limited febrile illness, pneumonia, or hepatitis. Endocarditis is the predominant form of chronic Q fever. All the classical techniques of bacteriology may be used for diagnosis of C burnetii infection. Nonetheless, because of the risk of contamination, isolation must be performed in biosafety level 3 laboratories. Moreover, to date no diagnostic tests for detection by polymerase chain reaction or specific antibodies for immunochemistry are available commercially. Hence, Q fever is diagnosed in most cases by serology. The most reliable technique appears to be micro-immunofluorescence, which exhibits both good sensitivity and specificity. A wider use of this serology in cases of blood culture-negative endocarditis, atypical pneumonia, unexplained fever, and hepatitis should lead to an increase of diagnosed cases.
authors.affiliation: Unité des Rickettsies, CNRS UMR 6020, Faculté de Médecine de Marseille, Marseille, France. bernard.lascola@medecine.univ-mrs.fr
authors.forename: Bernard La
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Scola
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D016997:Coxiella burnetii / Q000472:pathogenicity; D003470:Culture Media; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D051379:Mice; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D011778:Q Fever / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000276:immunology; D012698:Serologic Tests / Q000145:classification
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media