Journal

The Journal of the Japanese Society for Clinical Microbiology

Biblioraphy Information

[Vol.13 No.2 contents]
Japanese / English

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Article in Japanese

ArticleTitle Laboratory Diagnosis of Mycoplasmal Pneumonia
Language J
AuthorList Tsuguo Sasaki
Affiliation Department of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Infection Control National Institute of Infectious Diseases
Publication J.J.C.M.: 13 (2), 101-106, 2003
Received June 2, 2003
Accepted
Abstract Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common cause of atypical pneumonia in children and young adults. Although the proportion differs from report to report, usually 30∼ 40% of atypical pneumonia is caused by M. pneumoniae that show a feature of transient pulmonary infiltration in an X-ray photograph of the chest. The most frequent clinical syndrome is tracheobronchitis, often accompanied by upper respiratory tract symptoms. Typical complaints can persist for weeks to months and include hoarseness, fever, cough, sore throat, headache, chills, coryza, and general malaises. The incubation period is 1 to 3 weeks. There is no sex difference in the incidence of mycoplasmal pneumonia. Epidemics of mycoplasmal pneumonia in Japan broke out every four years up to 1980s, but since 1990, large outbreaks were not occurred in Japan. This paper shows laboratory diagnosis of mycoplasmal infections. The isolation of M. pneumoniae from pharyngeal specimens for etiological diagnosis is not well accepted, because it requires special culture media, a long incubation period (2∼ 4 weeks), and somewhat complicated procedures, and involves invalid testing results in 5∼ 10% of specimens due to the growth of contaminants. At present, serodiagnosis is commonly used. Of varieties of antibody-determining methods, several kinds of kits for indirect hemagglutination (IHA) are available commercially. Recently, detection of M. pneumoniae by the PCR method has become available and many laboratories have been using this method.
Keywords Mycoplasma pneumoniae
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