Valley Fever

You enter a hospital with an unknown disease, within a short period of time the physician is able to give you an intra-oral or topical treatment. But, what you may not know is; to confirm the diagnosis, samples are sent to the lab for a series a tests to confirm and determine the diagnosis. From culturing, smears, molecular test and much more. Finally the result are sent back and the physician determines the treatment.

Coccidiodomycosis commonly known as Valley Fever, a disease contracted through inhaling airborne fungus spores of Cooccidiidies immitis. In order to ensure that the patient has this fungus caused disease, several laboratory test can be completed. Routine sputum culturing, can diagnosis this disease with secretion from the lungs/ bronchi (mucus from lower airways), placed in a medium and grown under certain conditions. Coccidioides immitis takes around 3-5 days of the inoculation. When culturing the morphology appearances of the colonies are white and cottony mold; which is not sufficient for detection because other organisms have similar mycelial forms. In order to culture and have a definitive identification of the colonies it can take up to 3 weeks( too long). Coccidioides is highly contagious; culturing should only occur in a biosafety level 3(Medscape). Therefore Sputum smears viewed under a microscope slide is more relevant, detecting fungus parts with an addition of KOH (CFW fluorescent stain). High blood levels of IgG can help determine the extent of the disease. The most accurate and rapid method to isolate Coccidioides immitis is through a Molecular technique of PCR assay; which can detect the genetic material of the fungus directly in clinical specimens (Saubolle, 2007).