PURPOSE OF REVIEW To describe the recent insights of how molecular diagnosis can be useful to improve indication and selection of suitable allergens for specific immunotherapy and to increase its safety. RECENT FINDINGS As specific allergen immunotherapy is allergen-specific, the identification of the disease-eliciting allergen is a prerequisite for accurate prescription of anti-allergic trea...

Tuberculosis is one of the leading infectious diseases in the world and is responsible for more than 2 million deaths and 8 million new cases annually. Because of the slow growth rate of the causative agent Mycobacterium tuberculosis, isolation, identification, and drug susceptibility testing of this organism and other clinically important mycobacteria can take several weeks or longer. During t...

This collection of articles provides an account of six presentations delivered at the 19th International Conference of the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology(WAAVP) (held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, from 10 to 14 August 2003) in a symposium session on Molecular Systematics and Diagnosis, organised and chaired by R.B. Gasser and D.S. Zarlenga. The focus was on r...

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a unique tumour which is endemic in Southern China including Hong Kong. While the treatment results for early disease are encouraging, patients with advanced cancer are uniformly associated with poor prognosis. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the first virus related to the development of human malignancy, plays an important role in the carcinogenesis of the disease. ...

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of adult death in the Asia-Pacific Region, including Indonesia. As an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), TB remains a major public health issue especially in developing nations due to the lack of adequate diagnostic testing facilities. Diagnosis of TB has entered an era of molecular detection that provides faster and mor...

Molecular diagnostics, including DNAand RNA-based testing and genomics, play an increasingly important role in diagnosis and monitoring of patients. The tremendous explosion of knowledge about the molecular pathogenesis of both benign and neoplastic hematologic conditions over the last 20 years has now been translated into routine laboratory assays of high complexity. Such clinical molecular di...

Albinism is no longer a clinical diagnosis. The past classification of albinism was predicated on phenotypic expression, but now molecular biology has defined the condition more accurately. With recent advances in molecular research, it is possible to diagnose many of the various albinism conditions on the basis of genetic causation. This article seeks to review the current state of knowledge o...

background : bovine ephemeral fever (befv) is an arthropod-borne disease of cattle and water buffaloes. befv occurs seasonally in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of africa, asia and australia. it has been known for the past decades in iran based on clinical signs but lack of an accurate diagnosis has made the real feature of disease obscured. this is the first scientific report on i...