Kumar R, Singh M, Sagar T, Bharanidharan , Khurana N, Kumar V, Meher R, Malhotra V, Goel R, Saxena S, Kumar J. Sensitivity of liquid-based cytology in the diagnosis of mucormycosis in COVID-19 treated patients.
Cytopathology 2022;
33:454-462. [PMID:
35436358 PMCID:
PMC9111708 DOI:
10.1111/cyt.13131]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2022] [Revised: 04/06/2022] [Accepted: 04/11/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is associated with a wide range of disease patterns, ranging from mild to life-threatening pneumonia. COVID-19 can be associated with a suppressed immune response and/or hyperinflammatory state due to cytokine storm. Reduced immunity, combined with steroid usage to prevent cytokine storm along with various pre-existing co morbidities can prove to be a fertile ground for various secondary bacterial and fungal infection, including mucormycosis. Diagnosis of mucor is a challenging task given high negativity rate of various detection methods. While histopathology is considered the gold standard, the acquisition of necessary tissue biopsy specimens requires invasive procedures and is time consuming.
METHOD
In this study various methods of mucor detection, like conventional cytopathology (CCP), liquid-based cytology (LBC, BD SurepathTM ), potassium hydroxide mount (KOH) preparation, culture and histopathology were analysed. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated for various methods.
RESULTS
This study showed that LBC has sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of 72.4%,100%,100% and 38.4% respectively.
CONCLUSION
This study showed that, liquid-based cytology (LBC) can be a rapid and effective alternative to histopathology in mucor diagnosis.
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