Rapid diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection: clinical evaluation of a commercial probe test.

A hybridization test for the diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection (Gen-Probe Rapid Diagnostic System) was evaluated using throat swabs and sputum samples from 160 army conscripts with acute infection of the lower respiratory tract. M. pneumoniae were cultivated from sputa, and Mycoplasma serology was done with paired sera by both complement fixation and enzyme immunoassay techniques. Comparison of the probe test results with the Mycoplasma culture and serologic results showed that the Gen-Probe test was sensitive and specific for the rapid diagnosis of acute M. pneumoniae infection of the lower respiratory tract when sputum was used: It had good sensitivity (0.95) and specificity (0.85) among patients whose serologic results were consistent with their culture results. In contrast, the probe test performed with throat swabs seemed to have only limited value.