Comparison of enzyme immunoassay and gas-liquid chromatography for the rapid diagnosis of invasive candidiasis in cancer patients.

Three proposed quantitative markers for candidiasis, arabinitol, mannose, and mannan in serum, are compared in 50 normal blood donors and 38 high-risk patients, 23 with and 15 without invasive candidiasis. Arabinitol concentrations in serum, the arabinitol/creatinine ratio, and mannose concentrations in serum were significantly greater in the 15 patients without candidiasis than in the normal blood donors (P less than 0.05). The sensitivities and specificities were 26 and 87% for arabinitol, 13 and 93% for the arabinitol/creatinine ratio, and 39 and 87% for mannose. On the other hand, mannan concentrations in serum were less than 1 ng/ml in normal blood donors and patients without candidiasis (P = 0.344), and the sensitivity and specificity were 65 and 100%, respectively. Of 23 patients with proven or probable candidiasis, 16 had mannan levels in serum greater than the mean + 2 standard deviations (0.46 ng/ml) for the 15 controls. In 16 patients with invasive candidiasis and positive blood cultures for the Candida spp., only 13 had elevated levels of at least one of the three markers. The arabinitol/creatinine ratio, the mannose level, and the mannan level became elevated an average of 4 days before, 1 day before, and on the same day that the blood cultures were drawn, respectively. Conversely, mannan was detected in the sera of six of seven patients with invasive candidiasis and negative blood cultures. We conclude that the best approach to diagnosing invasive candidiasis involves obtaining blood cultures and carrying out serial assays for mannan in serum.