title: [Quantitative PCR for diagnosis of invasive fungal infections in patients with hematologic malignancies].
abstract: This study was aimed to establish the method of quantitative PCR (q-PCR) of fungi in peripheral blood for diagnosis of invasive fungal infections in patients with hematologic malignancies, and to preliminarily assess the diagnostic value of this method. The 18S rDNA-ITS1 area of high consensus sequence of fungi was selected to design primer and probe, the DNA of fungal species was extracted and q-PCR was performed to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the primer and probe. The standard product of fungal DNA was prepared by using pGEM-T plasmid and the fungal DNA in blood of patients was quantitatively detected. The results showed that the positive was found in 12 Aspergillus and 14 Candida species according to q-PCR detection, while there was no significant difference of fungal distribution between plasma, mononuclear cells and leukocytes (p<0.05). Receiver-operating characteristic analysis of q-PCR showed that the cut-off value for clinical diagnosis of invasive fungal infection was 8 copies/ml whole blood, its sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value and kappa were 0.84, 0.9, 0.955, 0.692 and 0.679 respectively. It is concluded that the fungal q-PCR assay may be used as an early diagnostic method for invasive fungal infections in patients with hematologic malignancies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Li-Li
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Ji-Jiang
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Suo
authors.forename: Ding-Xia
authors.initials: DX
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D001230:Aspergillus / Q000302:isolation & purification; D002175:Candida / Q000302:isolation & purification; D005260:Female; D019337:Hematologic Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009181:Mycoses / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity