Part I: Introductory Chapters

1. Current Challenges in the Diagnosis of Fungal Infections

Cornelia Lass-Flörl

2. The Changing Epidemiology of Invasive Fungal Infections

David A. Enoch, Huina Yang, Sani H. Aliyu, and Christianne Micallef

3. Current Algorithms in Fungal Diagnosis in the Immunocompromised Host

Thomas Lehrnbecher, Karsten Becker, and Andreas H. Groll

4. Commercial Molecular Tests for Fungal Diagnosis from a Practical Point of View

Michaela Lackner and Cornelia Lass-Flörl

5. Systemic Antifungal Agents: Current Status and Projected Future Developments

Seyedmojtaba Seyedmousavi, Haleh Rafati, Macit Ilkit, Mohammad T. Hedayati, and Paul Verweij

6. Fungal-Grade Reagents and Materials for Molecular Analysis

Michael G. Lorenz, Michael Lustig, and Marina Linow

Part II: Host Susceptibility and Defense

7. Host-Derived Biomarkers for Risk Assessment of Invasive Fungal Diseases

Cristina Cunha, Samuel M. Gonçalves, and Agostinho Carvalho

8. Assessment of Immune Responses to Fungal Infections: Identification and Characterization of Immune Cells in the Infected Tissue

Florian Sparber and Salomé LeibundGut-Landmann

Part III: Screening Approaches to Fungal Pathogen Detection

Renate Kain

10. Culture-Based Techniques

Birgit Willinger

11. Serological Approaches

Barbora Weinbergerova, Iva Kocmanova, Zdenek Racil, and Jiri Mayer

12. Isolation of Nucleic Acids for Fungal Diagnosis

13. Prerequisites for Control of Contamination in Fungal Diagnosis

Stefan Czurda and Thomas Lion

14. Broad-Spectrum Molecular Detection of Fungal Nucleic Acids by PCR-Based Amplification Techniques

Stefan Czurda and Thomas Lion

15. Genus- and Species-Specific PCR Detection Methods

16. Identification of Fungal Pathogens in Tissue Samples from Patients with Proven Invasive Infection by Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization

Ilka McCormick Smith and Volker Rickerts

17. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy-Based Identification of Yeast

Uwe Himmelreich, Tania C. Sorrell, and Heide-Marie Daniel

18. T2 Magnetic Resonance for Fungal Diagnosis

Part IV: Identification of Fungal Species

19. Fungal Species Identification by MALDI-ToF Mass Spectrometry

Oliver Bader

20. Immunological Identification of Fungal Species

Filomena Nogueira, Fabian Istel, Leonel Pereira, Michael Tscherner, and Karl Kuchler

21. The Molecular Blueprint of a Fungus by Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS)

22. Microarray Technologies in Fungal Diagnostics

Steffen Rupp

Part V: Drug Resistance Testing

23. Molecular Detection of Resistance to Echinocandins

Brunella Posteraro, Antonietta Vella, Elena De Carolis, and Maurizio Sanguinetti

24. Molecular Detection of Resistance to Azole Components

Brunella Posteraro, Antonietta Vella, Elena De Carolis, and Maurizio Sanguinetti

Part VI: Novel Experimental Approaches

25. Immune Cell-Supplemented Human Skin Model for Studying Fungal Infections

Andreas Kühbacher, Kai Sohn, Anke Burger-Kentischer, and Steffen Rupp