[Detection of respiratory viruses--how, when, where and why?]

[Influenza : clinical symptoms, diagnostics and therapy]

Influenza infections have important socio-economic consequences. Risk groups identified so far include small children and elderly adults with comorbidities. In recent years in addition to seasonal influenza an outbreak of avian influenza occurred in 2005 and the new H1N1 pandemic occurred in 2009. For the latter other at risk groups were affected and a different clinical course has been documented. The focus of this article is to give an overview on the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, diagnosis and therapy of influenza infections.

Use of a novel virus detection assay to identify coronavirus HKU1 in the lungs of a hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipient with fatal pneumonia

C. Uhlenhaut, J.I. Cohen, S. Pavletic, G. Illei, J.C. Gea‐Banacloche, M. Abu‐Asab, T. Krogmann, L. Gubareva, S. McClenahan, P.R. Krause. Use of a novel virus detection assay to identify coronavirus HKU1 in the lungs of a hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipient with fatal pneumonia. Transpl Infect Dis 2011. All rights reserved

Abstract: A 38‐year‐old female patient with systemic lupus erythematosus presented with pulmonary infiltrates and hypoxemia for several months following immunodepleting autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. She was treated for influenza, which was isolated repeatedly from oropharynx and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids, and later empirically for lupus pneumonitis, but died 6 months after transplant. Autopsy findings failed to show influenza in the lungs or lupus pneumonitis. A novel generic polymerase chain reaction (PCR)‐based assay using degenerate primers identified human coronavirus (CoV) HKU1 RNA in BAL fluid at autopsy. CoV was confirmed by virus‐specific PCRs of lung tissue at autopsy. Electron microscopy showed viral particles consistent with CoV HKU1 in lung tissue both at autopsy and from a previous biopsy. Although human CoV HKU1 infection is not usually severe, in highly immunocompromised patients, it can be associated with fatal pneumonia.