Molecular bacteriology: a diagnostic tool for the millennium

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Abstract
It can be argued that for acute bacterial infections, the clinical laboratory provides solely confirmation or denial of a clinical diagnosis, because in many cases treatment of the patient will already have begun. Most bacteriological reports are generated at least 48 hours after the receipt of the specimen. This delay largely reflects the staining and microscopy of the specimen and the growth of the organism in pure culture. The limitations of microscopy and culture include poor sensitivity of staining methods; uncultivable, slow growing, or fastidious bacteria; and the potential hazard to staff of handling highly dangerous pathogens. Other conventional methods such as antibody or antigen detection may suffer from false positive or false negative reactions, cross reactions, background titres, and non-specificity. Despite these drawbacks, conventional methods continue to serve the diagnosis of infectious diseases well, but there is considerable room for novel molecular approaches.