Intensive care patients, with severe and life threatening illnesses and
injuries, which require constant care, close monitoring and specialist
support equipment and medications to ensure normal bodily functions,
such as respiratory failure. Fungal infection has emerged as a
significant health-care problem in recent years, owing to use of
broad-spectrum antibiotics, long-term use of immunosuppressive agents,
and increasing population of chronically ill patients with indwelling
catheters.Often, these risk factors overlap among patients admitted in
the ICU leading to an increased rate of opportunistic fungal infections.
Identification and evaluation of fungal pathogens by real time PCR in
comparison with conventional technique for detection of fungal pathogens
in ICU patients suffering from respiratory diseases.Out of 97 samples
collected from ICU patients with respiratory diseases, only 18(18.5%)
samples were found be positive for fungal infections by real time PCR
technique.Molecular method(real time PCR) for fungal pathogens detection
is more specific and sensitive from conventional methods, but it cannot
be used alone, unless coupled with DNA sequencing to determine fungal
infect