Diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

Diagnosis - Identification of the characteristic of something, either by process of elimination or other analytical methods. Diagnosis is used widely to determine causes of symptomes, mitigations for problems, or solutions for particular issue.

Below are methods that used to diagnose Mycoplasma pneumoniae which infect human body:

1. Stethoscope

• Method use to listen and check whether the patient produce abnormal sounds due the Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections.

• Not good enough because sometime it may indicate there is no infection even when Mycoplasma pneumoniae actually present in the lung of the patients.

2. X-rays

• Patients have to undergo X-rays examination to check the lungs to confirm a diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

• For further confirm Mycoplasma pneumoniae, doctors may also take blood samples and check for Mycoplasma antibodies.

3. IgM serology test

• Cold-hemagglutinins test on the patient also can be done to check for Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. Cold-hemagglutinins test is a type of serology test for Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection . The patients specimens are collected using a throat swabs by rubbing with a sterile swab over the posterior portion of pharynx after coughing. The collected samples are test with Mycoplasma pneumoniae-IgM antibody. The patients samples with Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection will causes the IgM antibodies to appear. Thus, this indicate a positive result for IgM antibodies and there are Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in the lungs of the patients.

4. Blood agar

• Besides that, blood agar are used to culture the sample collected from patients. Mycoplasma pneumoniae do not grow well on blood agar. Thus, it help to diagnose the Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection by observe the growth on the agar.

5. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

• Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is also used to diagnose Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. It is used to amplify a single or few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude and generate millions or more copies of a particular DNA sequence. PCR permits identification of slow-growing microorganisms such as Mycoplasma pneumoniae.The basis for PCR diagnostic applications in microbiology is the detection of infectious agents and also the discrimination of non-pathogenic from pathogenic strains by virtue of specific genes.