A fast, easy and reliable fungus hunt – what might make you think of a foraging course actually describes the advantages of EUROIMMUN’s state-of-the-art automation solutions in the search for very different fungi: dermatophytes. These highly infectious filamentous fungi are often an unpleasant souvenir of visits to saunas or swimming pools, where they find ideal conditions to multiply and infect new hosts. They colonise primarily the skin and nails, causing redness, itching and skin inflammation. Especially in persons with a weakened immune system, e.g. due to diabetes or cancer, as well as in children, fungal infections of the skin, foot or nails can also lead to severe complications and affect internal organs. In such cases, fast and secure diagnosis is particularly important to promptly initiate a suitable therapy. However, it is true for all patients: The sooner a targeted treatment is initiated, the better.
When a fungal infection is suspected, doctors usually start a culture from a sample taken from the affected area. And then the waiting game begins, as it takes several weeks until a pathogen has been successfully cultured and can be identified based on criteria such as growth, appearance and colour. But this method not only means that valuable time passes before diagnosis, it can also give incorrect results if the patient has already tried to treat the infection with over-the-counter antimycotics or is suffering from a mixed infection.
Not so with the EUROArray Dermatomycosis! The PCR test from EUROIMMUN allows comprehensive identification of the most important skin and nail fungi in less than 24 hours. The sample can be tested for 23 dermatophyte species and 6 yeasts/moulds at the same time and also includes integrated universal detection for 27 additional causative agents of dermatomycosis – the foundation for successful, targeted treatment. This makes the subjective and experience-based evaluation of cultures obsolete. Thanks to the automated evaluation using the EUROArrayScan software, the test results are highly reproducible and reliable and the risk of misinterpretation is significantly reduced.
And performing the EUROArray Dermatomycosis will soon become even faster and more convenient thanks to an automated workflow with the Automated Workstation Pre-NAT II and the EUROArrayProcessor. Once the Automated Workstation Pre-NAT II has finished the nucleic acid extraction and PCR setup and the PCR has been performed on the thermal cycler, the EUROArrayProcessor comes into play. Developed by EUROIMMUN in close collaboration with customers and produced in Germany, the EUROArrayProcessor enables fully automated hybridisation, washing and drying of EUROArrays. The combination of the Automated Workstation Pre-NAT II and the EUROArrayProcessor thus not only saves time as a whole, but above all significantly reduces hands-on time. Further advantages of this automated workflow are standardised test conditions and sample traceability throughout the whole process, putting an end to cumbersome and error-prone manual processing and assignment.
Benefit from state-of-the-art molecular diagnostics with EUROIMMUN!
Would you like to learn more about dermatological pathogens and suitable detection methods? Visit our dermatology website. There you will find information on the latest test systems, short videos on PCR-based diagnostics in mycology and interesting case studies.
