Abstract

Ledong Sun, Caimei Zhong, Mingyu Chen, Bing Wang, Xueyan Liu, Xiufen Zheng, Fengjiao He, Zaigao Zhou and Kang Zeng*

To establish a rapid, sensitive and specific detection method for deep fungal infection, we detected the deep infection of Candida albicans and Aspergillus flavus in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus by using multiplex fluorescent real-time PCR (MFRT-PCR). Firstly, the positive rate, sensitivity and specificity of multiplex fluorescent quantitative PCR for detecting the fungal infection was tested in 20 specimens from systemic lupus erythematosus patients with C. albicans and A. flavus infections. Then, 20 specimens from SLE patients with suspected deep fungal infections and 20 other microorganism infections were detected with MFRT-PCR. Results showed the positivity rate and specificity of both 100% for detecting the deep C. albicans and A. flavus infection. Its detecting sensitivity for deep fungal infection was 75%, which was significantly higher than that of fugal culture method (40%) (P < 0.05). MFRT-PCR is a better method for detecting deep C. albicans and A. flavus infections, with higher sensitivity and specificity than fungal culture.