Clinical applications of molecular diagnosis in infectious diseases

Molecular diagnosis of infectious diseases is a rapidly evolving field. New technologies have been revolutionizing patient care, improving the time of diagnosis, therapeutic intervention, and subsequently, patient outcomes from many infectious diseases. These new technologies, however, do not come without challenges: selecting from the number of tests available can be daunting; an overwhelming amount of information can be obtained with unclear importance; and the cost can become prohibitive, particularly in resource constrained settings. Appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic stewardship of rapid molecular diagnostics is essential to guide their effective use, control the costs, and increase the benefits of the technology to a broader community. In this chapter, we highlight the use of molecular diagnostics in a broad but nonexhaustive array of bacterial, fungal, viral, and mycobacterial infections in clinical practice, as well as their use in therapeutic monitoring and assessing for resistance to treatment.