Chen WY, Zhong C, Zhou JY, Zhou H. False positive detection of serum cryptococcal antigens due to insufficient sample dilution: A case series. World J Clin Cases 2023; 11(8): 1837-1846 [PMID: 36970012 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i8.1837]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hua Zhou, PhD, Doctor, Department of Respiratory, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No. 1882 Zhonghuan South Road, Jiaxing 314000, Zhejiang Province, China. zhouhua1@zju.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Respiratory System
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Wen-Yu Chen, Cheng Zhong, Jian-Ying Zhou, Hua Zhou, Department of Respiratory, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 314000, Zhejiang Province, China
Wen-Yu Chen, Department of Respiratory, The Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Chen YW and Zhong C contributed equally to this work and should be considered as co-first authors; Chen YW conceptualized, drafted, and led the writing of the manuscript; Zhou H and Zhou JY provided overall conceptual guidance for the study; Chen YW closely worked with Zhong C to develop the article; all authors have contributed to the writing and reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
Supported bythe Key Discipline of Jiaxing Respiratory Medicine Construction Project, No. 2019-zc-04.
Informed consent statement: The ethics committee approved the exemption of informed consent, and the ethics review approval document has been uploaded.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hua Zhou, PhD, Doctor, Department of Respiratory, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No. 1882 Zhonghuan South Road, Jiaxing 314000, Zhejiang Province, China. zhouhua1@zju.edu.cn
Received: December 6, 2022 Peer-review started: December 6, 2022 First decision: January 17, 2023 Revised: February 2, 2023 Accepted: February 17, 2023 Article in press: February 17, 2023 Published online: March 16, 2023 Processing time: 91 Days and 0.2 Hours
Abstract
At present, with the development of technology, the detection of cryptococcal antigen (CRAG) plays an increasingly important role in the diagnosis of cryptococcosis. However, the three major CRAG detection technologies, latex agglutination test (LA), lateral flow assay (LFA) and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay, have certain limitations. Although these techniques do not often lead to false-positive results, once this result occurs in a particular group of patients (such as human immunodeficiency virus patients), it might lead to severe consequences.
Core Tip: Cryptococcosis is a pulmonary or disseminated infectious disease caused by Cryptococcus, which mainly causes pneumonia and meningitis, but also skin, bone or internal organs infection. the three major cryptococcal antigen detection technologies, latex agglutination test, lateral flow assay and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay, have certain limitations. Although these techniques do not often lead to false-positive results, once this result occurs in a particular group of patients (such as human immunodeficiency virus patients), it might lead to severe consequences. Therefore, once the test results are inconsistent with the clinical symptoms, it is necessary to reexamine the samples carefully.
