Abstract Laboratory tests substantially impact clinical care, but their overuse, misuse, or underuse can cause patient harm and dissatisfaction, suboptimal patient care, and increased costs. Traditionally, the first consideration of pathology and laboratory medicine has been centered on optimizing the…
Introduction Parasitic infections remain an important cause of pulmonary disease throughout the world, although less frequently encountered in resource-rich countries. The most common protozoal parasite–associated lung diseases throughout the world are caused by Plasmodium falciparum (falciparum malaria) and Toxoplasma gondii…
Introduction Yeasts and yeastlike fungi are commonly encountered in human tissue specimens from patients with fungal infections. Alterations in normal anatomy, due to the presence of indwelling catheters, and alterations in normal microbiota, which occur with antibiotic use, provide opportunities…
Tuberculosis Clinical Features Prevalence Tuberculosis remains one of the most important diseases in the world. Although the DNA of the microorganism responsible for tuberculosis has been recovered from ancient Egyptian mummies, the profound increase in the incidence of the disease…
Introduction The microorganisms covered in this chapter all have the common characteristic of being partially acid fast but unable to retain carbol fuchsin in the presence of a strong acid decolorizer (i.e., they are not fully acid fast). This chapter,…
Introduction The Papillomaviridae, Parvoviridae, and Polyomaviridae are three families of small, nonenveloped, DNA viruses. Despite their structural and taxonomic similarities, these viruses infect different tissue types and cause very different human diseases. This chapter examines the viruses in each family…
Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases: An Integrated Approach The diagnosis of infectious diseases ranges from straightforward clinical diagnoses to those that are possible only with the use of advanced molecular methods. Between these two extremes are the many infectious diseases for…