Automation Technique in Medical Mycology

The automated system presently are in their budding phase in diagnosis of fungal disease as most of them providing identification of yeast along with their antifungal sensitivity pattern. Very few equipments have been approved for identification of filamentous fungi. Further, due to high cost, their availability are still limited in high end diagnostic laboratory especially in developing countries. Nevertheless, their features of automated, faster, precise, sensitive and more accurate identification with minimum cross reactivity as well as antimicrobial susceptibility adequately may compensate the initial higher cost of the equipment. The rapid identification and antimicrobial sensitivity report may immensely help clinician in initiating early evidence based precise treatment to reduce mortality especially in invasive fungal diseases by reducing treatment cost and hospital stay to ultimately help the patients, their family and the country with lesser disease and economic burden. These features are likely to justify their requirement in diagnostic microbiology including mycology as the integral part of the laboratory for early, precise and accurate diagnosis of fungal diseases.