Dermatophytes are a distinct group of fungi that infect human and animal hair, skin, and nails, causing a variety of cutaneous infections known as ringworm. Dermatophytes such as Trichophyton, Microsporum, and Epidermatophyton cause the majority…
The clinical laboratory has access to a variety of enrichment and selective media for the isolation and identification of pathogenic fungi. The majority of the media mentioned in this article are commercially available in dehydrated…
Sabouraud Dextrose Agar is a culture medium for yeasts, molds, and aciduric microorganisms. Sabouraud Dextrose Agar is Carlier’s modification of Sabouraud’s formulation for the cultivation of fungi (yeasts, molds), which is especially useful for fungi…
Brain Heat Infusion Broth is highly nutritious and is recommended for the propagation of pathogenic cocci and other fastidious organisms associated with blood culture work and allied pathological investigations, as well as for Staphylococcus aureus…
Evacuated blood collection tubes without anticoagulant are used to produce serum (or as a discard tube), whereas other types of evacuated tubes may contain an anticoagulant or additive. The additives range from those that promote…
Creatinine in the blood is produced by the spontaneous breakdown of creatine and creatine phosphate. Its production and release into body fluids happen at a consistent rate and are proportional to muscle mass. As a…
Urea (urea nitrogen) is the main component of NPN material in blood; it is distributed throughout the body water and has equal concentrations in intracellular and extracellular fluid. Gross changes in NPN are usually caused…
Microbiologist can easily identify or guess an isolate by observing the colony characteristics of the organisms that have been isolated. The descriptions that follow are commonly used to investigate colony characteristics. Many of the colony…
Adaptive immunity is also known as acquired immunity since the efficacy of immune response is only acquired by experience. Innate immunity is the resistance that a person is born with. Individual immunity, racial immunity, and species immunity…
Herd immunity refers to the total degree of immunity in a population. The eradication of an infectious disease is dependent on the establishment of a high degree of herd immunity against the pathogen. An epidemic…
