Laboratory Diagnosis of Invasive Aspergillosis: From Diagnosis to Prediction of Outcome

Table 4

Approaches to the prevention and diagnosis of IA.

Strategy	Rationale	Laboratory diagnostic use
Prophylaxis	Prevention of infection using antifungal treatment and protective accommodation	None
Empiric	Early antifungal therapy in response to non-specific signs and symptoms	None (blood cultures are typically done to detect bacteremia and fungemia)
Preemptive	Antifungal therapy in response to early specific markers of IA	CT, GM, PCR, and BDG usually one or two markers triggering therapy
Targetted	Antifungal therapy of clearly defined cases of IA	All available investigations, using EORTC-MSG criteria