Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection was diagnosed in 18 (12.5%) of 144 adults hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia. The infection was demonstrated by PCR in 15 patients and by serology, using two methods, in 10 patients. The mean age of the 8 patients with positive M. pneumoniae PCR and negative serology was significantly higher than that of the 10 patients with positive serology.

OBJECTIVE Our aim was to study the proportion of healthcare workers with a positive serology for Influenza A(H1N1)2009 without having flu, in a Spanish hospital at the beginning of the pandemic. METHODS A survey study carried out during August 2009 (before the peak of the pandemic in Spain) in the Hospital Costa del Sol, a second level hospital with almost 300 beds in the South of Spain. The ...

Background and Objective: Opportunistic infections are the leading cause of death among patients subjected to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The aim of this study was to compare the seroprevalence of Cytomegalovirus (CMV)  and toxoplasmosis infection in newly diagnosed HIV infected patients with healthy controls and it’s correlat...

AIMS To determine whether the polymerase chain reaction with sequence specific primers (PCR-SSP) can assign HLA-DR type more accurately than serology in a routine hospital laboratory. METHODS The 93 patients currently awaiting kidney transplants have been DR typed by serology over the past 14 years, 82% within the past five years. They have now been retyped using the PCR-SSP method described ...

The cut-off values used in C6 peptide-based enzyme immunoassay (EIA), a widely test Lyme borreliosis (LB) serology, have not been thoroughly analysed. objective of the study was to examine performance EIA, and determine optimal for test. analysed data contained results 1368 serum samples. EIA index were compared statistically with immunoblot (IB) results. identified further tested well-defined ...

serology and dna techniques are employed for human leukocyte antigen (hla) typing in different transplant centers. results may not always correlate well and may need retyping with different technique. all the patients (with aplastic anemia, thalassemia, and immunodeficiency) and their donors, requiring hla typing for bone marrow transplant were enrolled in the study. serological hla typing was ...

This article forms part of our 'Tests and results' series for 2012, which aims to provide information about common tests that general practitioners order regularly. It considers areas such as indications, what to tell the patient, what the test can and cannot tell you, and interpretation of results.

Difficulties with serology for papillomavirus are associated with the large number of human papillomavirus, cross-reactions between papillomavirus, and to the diversity of lesions and target sites for infection. In addition, the expression of the papillomavirus in the superficial layers of the epithelium gives rise to the weak presentation to immunocompetent cells of viral antigens, which in tu...

Mycobacterium leprae is the causative agent of leprosy, a disease that, despite having an effective cure with multidrug therapy (MDT), leaves millions of cured patients with sequelae as a consequence of the nerve damage that forms the hallmark of leprosy. A number of diagnostic issues hamper the correct and timely diagnosis of leprosy and the correct classification of patients for treatment pur...