[Current approaches to the clinical virologic diagnosis of viral respiratory tract infections]

Abstract

Respiratory viruses (respiratory syncytial virus, influenza virus type A and B, parainfluenza virus and adenovirus) can cause a wide variety of human disease. Viral respiratory diseases in adults and children cause significant morbidity and mortality. Proper and rapid diagnosis of these etiological agents is necessary for the appropriate use of effective antiviral drugs and to decrease unnecessary antibiotic therapy. Many virology laboratories detect respiratory viruses by inoculating conventional cell culture tubes with respiratory samples and then examining for cytopathic effect or hemadsorption. However, this procedure can require many days or even weeks for viral detection and identification, providing culture results to clinicians in a period of time that may not be clinically useful. Laboratory diagnosis of respiratory virus infections has become easier and more rapid with the use of immunofluorescent antibody tests, shell vial culture methods, and molecular biological assays. In this review article, the specificities and sensitivities of these assays were compared on the basis of recent studies, and the favorable ones for the routine diagnosis were updated.