Dumler J S, Valsamakis A
Department of Pathology, John Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
Am J Clin Pathol. 1999 Jul;112(1 Suppl 1):S33-9.
Diagnostic molecular methods have had a large effect on diagnosis and management of infectious diseases. These tools have been developed in response to diagnostic methods that lack sensitivity, specificity, or rapid turnaround time, to assist with identification of agents that are difficult to cultivate or classify or as methods for assessing the effects of antiviral or antimicrobial agents in chronic infection. Molecular methods have also enabled microbiologists to define disease by the presence of virulence, toxin, or antimicrobial resistance genes and to identify potentially important clones of organisms responsible for outbreaks of infection. Early outcome-based studies suggest that molecular methods may provide substantial reductions in per patient costs. Nucleic acid diagnostic methods will continue to be used in infectious disease and microbiology, and increasingly appear to be complementary tools with important diagnostic, patient management, and health care cost benefits for the laboratory and health care systems.
诊断性分子方法对传染病的诊断和管理产生了重大影响。这些工具是针对缺乏敏感性、特异性或周转时间长的诊断方法而开发的，用于协助鉴定难以培养或分类的病原体，或作为评估抗病毒或抗菌药物在慢性感染中效果的方法。分子方法还使微生物学家能够通过毒力、毒素或抗菌耐药基因的存在来定义疾病，并识别导致感染暴发的潜在重要生物体克隆。早期基于结果的研究表明，分子方法可能会大幅降低每位患者的成本。核酸诊断方法将继续用于传染病和微生物学领域，并且越来越成为实验室和医疗系统的重要补充工具，具有重要的诊断、患者管理和医疗成本效益。
