A Review of a Diagnostic Tool: Galactomannan

Abstract

Invasive fungal infections, including invasive aspergillosis are associated with a high morbidity and mortality especially in immunocompromised patients. Diagnosis is often difficult due to several factors such as delay in clinical suspicion and the lack of spesific clinical findings. Galactomannan is a polysaccharide cell wall component of Aspergillus and galactomannan antigen detection has become widely used for diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis. Here, we tried to discuss the diagnostic value of the galactomannan test in the context of literature review.

Next-Generation Sequencing–Based Decision Support for Intensivists in Difficult-to-Diagnose Disease States: A Case Report of Invasive Cerebral Aspergillosis

“…4,6 GM is a cell wall component of Aspergillus spp., which is released during cell replication. 2,7 We used a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to detect fungal antigens. Fungal antigen measurements are limited by low sensitivity and low specificity due to the widespread occurrence of Aspergillus spp.…”

Post-COVID-19 cavitary lung lesion due to Aspergillus flavus and Enterobacter cloacae in a patient suffering from COVID-19 pneumonia – a case report

“…may be misleading. The low sensitivity and low positive predictive value of serum galactomannan are well documented [7, 8]. The detection of galactomannan in specimens other than serum specimens may provide additional evidence for invasive aspergillosis via a noninvasive method and may help to exclude false-positive or false-negative test results obtained using serum samples [9], which could not be done in this case.…”