background: candida albicans (c. albicans) is a major cause of candidaemia in people with impaired immunity. blood culture is a “gold standard” for candidaemia detection but is time-consuming and relatively insensitive. we established a real-time pcr assay for c. albicans detection in blood by lightcycler pcr and melting curve analysis. methods: five milliliter blood samples from healthy volunt...

Guidelines for the management of patients with invasive candidiasis and mucosal candidiasis were prepared by an Expert Panel of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. These updated guidelines replace the previous guidelines published in the 15 January 2004 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases and are intended for use by health care providers who care for patients who either have or are at...

Visceral candidiasis in 56 patients, 39 of whom were thought to be immune deficient, was investigated using three serological detection methods--whole cell agglutination, haemagglutination, and counterimmunoelectrophoresis for antibodies; two determinations of circulating antigens--haemagglutination inhibition and latex agglutination; and determination of the arabinitol:creatinine ratio. Of the...

Two cases of invasive candidiasis in intensive care patients are presented to illustrate the usefulness of detection of antibodies to Candida albicans germ tubes in the diagnosis of invasive candidiasis and in monitoring the efficacy of the antifungal treatment.

Mice infected by Candida albicans and treated with monoclonal antibody C7 survived longer than saline-treated animals. A prozone-like effect was observed. The in vitro candidacidal activity of macrophages was strongly enhanced when C. albicans was opsonized by C7 and complete murine serum was present.

Objective/Methods. To determine the outcomes of invasive neonatal candidiasis before institution of routine antifungal prophylaxis, we conducted a retrospective review of cases of invasive candidiasis in newborns in a referral-based neonatal intensive care unit located in a single tertiary academic center between January 1998 and December 2002. Results. Sixty-three newborns with invasive neonat...

Because it is often difficult to diagnose invasive Candida infections, a sensitive hemagglutination inhibition assay to detect the surface antigen, mannan, was developed. Mannan antigenemia was detected early in the course of infection in 4 of 14 patients with systemic candidiasis and 2 of 5 patients with invasive gastrointestinal candidiasis. Mannan was not detected in 48 patients with noninva...