© 2004 Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine
SELF ASSESSMENT ANSWERS
Shortness of breath
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Varicella zoster virus (VZV) or chickenpox pneumonitis.
Diagnosis can be made in most circumstances clinically. Confirmation and identification of the virus can be made in a number of ways using laboratory tests:
- Polymerase chain reaction—With high sensitivity (97%–100%) and specificity for viral DNA with rapid diagnosis time, this is a useful test, as it can be applied to most clinical specimens and is likely to replace older tests.1
- Serology—Anti-VZV IgM can be used to detect active disease, while the presence of anti-VZV IgG is a marker of previous infection/inoculation.
- Electron microscopy—This is very sensitive but expensive and unable to differentiate between VZV and other herpes viruses—for example, herpes simplex virus (HSV).
- Viral culture—This is the gold standard for establishing the diagnosis, though VZV is more difficult to culture than HSV.
- Tzanck smear—An inexpensive "bedside" test from vesicular fluid with a sensitivity reported at 80%–100%.2 Under
. . . [Full text of this article]
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Articles
- Shortness of breath
- J S Dawson and C J L Hetherington
Postgrad. Med. J. 2004 80: 679.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Symptomatic bradycardia and postural hypotension
- R Gupta, S Singh, M A Rahman, M Saeed, and Y Birnbaum
Postgrad. Med. J. 2004 80: 679-680.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
