Advances in the methods of mycological detection for onychomycosis

Abstract

Presently, onychomycosis is one of the major global public health issues. The diagnosis of onychomycosis relies on typical clinical signs, mycological examination (fungal microscopy, culture) and pathological analysis. The traditional methods are difficult to precisely and rapidly identify fungal species. Emerging technologies, such as PCR-based molecular identification, gene chip, LAMP, MALDI-TOF MS and spectroscopy, exhibit advantages of rapidity, simplicity and accuracy, and overcome the limitations of traditional methods. This paper summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and modern methods for mycological detection in order to facilitate the development of new detection methods.

Keywords

• onychomycosis
• fungus
• detection
• gene chip