How to diagnose Mycoplasma pneumoniae etiology in a child with pneumonia? Xu et al. compared the detection rates of M. pneumoniae in nasopharyngeal aspirates (NPA) vs. bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) obtained from 406 children hospitalized pneumonia [3]. Serum samples were tested for microbe-specific IgM and BAL samples for microbe-specific DNA by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR). NPA samples were studied by the same PCR in 357 (88%) cases. IgM determination was positive in 101 (24.9%) patients, regarded as mycoplasmal infections and "gold standards" when evaluating the diagnostic value of NPA vs. BAL samples. The positivity rate of PCR was 48.5% in BAL and 40.9% in NPA. The sensitivity and specificity of PCR was 78.6% and 63.5% in NPA and 70.3% and 58.7% in BAL, respectively
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