TY - JOUR
T1 - Legionella and community-acquired pneumonia
T2 - A review of current diagnostic tests from a clinician's viewpoint
AU - Waterer, Grant W.
AU - Baselski, Vickie S.
AU - Wunderink, Richard G.
N1 - Funding Information:
Dr. Waterer was supported by the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Foundation and by the Athelstan and Amy Saw Medical Research Fellowship from the University of Western Australia.
Copyright:
Copyright 2007 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - Many physicians are unaware of the limitations of the available tests for diagnosing infections with Legionella organisms. Geographic differences in the importance of nonpneumophila Legionella species as pathogens are underrecognized, in part because available diagnostic tests are biased toward the detection of pneumophila serogroup 1. Routine laboratory practices reduce the likelihood of culturing Legionella species from clinical isolates. Failure of seroconversion is common, particularly with nonpneumophila species; even when seroconversion occurs, it may take much longer than 4 weeks. Urinary antigen testing has insufficient sensitivity to affect clinical management in most regions of the United States, as it can reliably detect only L. pneumophila serogroup 1 infections. Polymerase chain reaction-based techniques offer hope of providing highly sensitive, rapid diagnostic tests for all Legionella species, but limitations in the current tests will make validating them difficult.
AB - Many physicians are unaware of the limitations of the available tests for diagnosing infections with Legionella organisms. Geographic differences in the importance of nonpneumophila Legionella species as pathogens are underrecognized, in part because available diagnostic tests are biased toward the detection of pneumophila serogroup 1. Routine laboratory practices reduce the likelihood of culturing Legionella species from clinical isolates. Failure of seroconversion is common, particularly with nonpneumophila species; even when seroconversion occurs, it may take much longer than 4 weeks. Urinary antigen testing has insufficient sensitivity to affect clinical management in most regions of the United States, as it can reliably detect only L. pneumophila serogroup 1 infections. Polymerase chain reaction-based techniques offer hope of providing highly sensitive, rapid diagnostic tests for all Legionella species, but limitations in the current tests will make validating them difficult.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0002-9343(00)00624-0
DO - 10.1016/S0002-9343(00)00624-0
M3 - Review article
C2 - 11152864
AN - SCOPUS:0035182909
VL - 110
SP - 41
EP - 48
JO - American Journal of Medicine
JF - American Journal of Medicine
SN - 0002-9343
IS - 1
ER -