A Review of a Diagnostic Tool: Galactomannan

Abstract

Invasive fungal infections, including invasive aspergillosis are associated with a high morbidity and mortality especially in immunocompromised patients. Diagnosis is often difficult due to several factors such as delay in clinical suspicion and the lack of spesific clinical findings. Galactomannan is a polysaccharide cell wall component of Aspergillus and galactomannan antigen detection has become widely used for diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis. Here, we tried to discuss the diagnostic value of the galactomannan test in the context of literature review. A Review of a Diagnostic Tool: Galactomannan Gulhadiye Avcu1, Deniz Yilmaz Karapinar2* 1Ege University Faculty of Medicine, Children’s Hospital, Department of Pediatric Infectious Disease, 35040 Bornova Izmir, Turkey 2Ege University Faculty of Medicine, Children’s Hospital, Pediatric Hematology, 35040 Bornova Izmir, Turkey