iv
The present work describes the evaluation of the value of
polymerase chain reaction in diagnosis of pneumonia caused by the
most common three bacterial pathogens / Streptococcus
pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and Moraxella catarrhalis
from sputum of patients with community acquired pneumonia
admitted to The Department of Pulmonary Diseases of Gulhane
Military Medical Academy. In this study, 107 sputa from 142
patients with suspected community acquired pneumonia were used
to survey the causative agents.
Identification of the pathogens was performed by sputum
Gram stain and conventional microbiological methods. Polymerase
chain reaction was performed to investigate the presence of
S.pneumoniae, H.influenzae, and M.catarrhalis for the same
sputum samples as well. PCR products were processed by
electrophoresis on 2% agarose gels with visualization of the
amplicon with ethidium bromide and UV illumination. The 33 of 107
samples were positive in cultures and 67 in PCR.
S.pneumoniae (48.5%) was the most common etiologic
agent as to PCR analysis. The incidences of H.influenzae and
M.catarrhalis were determined as 18.6%, and 4.7% respectively.
The incidence of S.pneumoniae in patients with CAP and
control group individuals were almost the same. The sputum PCR
positives were higher than those reported carriage rates for these
three microorganisms. 9 of 107 patients with PCR-positive had
evidence of infection with pathogens other than S.pneumoniae.
The results indicated that some of the PCR results were false
positive due to oropharyngeal contamination. PCR testing of
sputum samples for diagnosing pneumococcal pneumonia is unable
to distinguish colonization from infection in some circumstances. To
distinguish the colonization from infection, sputum Gram stain
should be applied to the sputum specimens.
Because of being faster and easier, PCR looks like becoming
more reliable technique by the using of valid specimens from
patients with community-acquired pneumonia if supported by
quantitative techniques.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12605920/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Creators | Uskudar Guclu, Aylin |
| Contributors | Gozen, Aysegul |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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