JPSIM Journal of Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine J Pak Soc Intern Med 2709-8729 2710-0804 Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine 10.70302/jpsim.v7i2.2630 jpsim.v7i2.2630 Original Research Comparison of 1,3-Beta-D-Glucan & Galactomannan Antigens in Early Diagnosis of Invasive Fungal Infections Komal Tayyeba drtksami@gmail.com * Bukhari Hina Mumtaz Sami Ullah Gillani Aliya Muzafar Iqtadar Somia Haque Israr Ul Narowal Medical College, Narowal, Pakistan King Edward Medical University/Mayo Hospital Lahore, Pakistan *Correspondence: Tayyeba Komal (drtksami@gmail.com)

The authors declare no conflict of interest. Somia Iqtadar is an Associate Editor of JPSIM. This manuscript was handled by an editor independent of the author and peer reviewed in the usual way.

 03 06 2026 2026 7 2 150 154 20 12 2025 15 04 2026 04 05 2026 Copyright © 2026 The Author(s) 2026 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective

To compare the efficacy of 1,3-beta-D-glucan & galactomannan antigens for early diagnosis of invasive fungal infections (IFIs).

 Methodology

This was a comparative cross-sectional study conducted at Pathology department, King Edward Medical University, Lahore for 6 months. 37 confirmed patients of IFIs were enrolled. Venous samples were taken carefully in sterile serum cups from all patients and samples were divided in 2 groups on the basis of antigen biomarker applied i.e. BDG and Galactomannan. BDG of >80 pg/ml was declared positive while galactomannan index > 0.5 was taken as positive. Data was analyzed in SPSS-26.

 Results

The mean age was 42.43±14.83 years. Out of 37, 26 (70.27%) were males and 11 (29.73%) females. Candida was seen in 21 (56.76%), mucor in 8 (21.62%), aspergillus in 6 (16.22%) and trichosporon in 2 (5.41%) patients. BDG showed positive for 23 (62.16%) and negative for 14 (37.84%) IFIs while Galactomannan was positive for 6 (16.22%) and negative for 31 (83.78%) IFIs. The sensitivity of BDG was 62.16% and Galactomannan was 16.22%. The comparison between two biomarkers was significant (p=0.037).

 Conclusion

BDG was more effective than galactomannan for early diagnosis of IFIs.

 Keywords Invasive Fungal Infections comparison 1 3-beta-D-Glucan Galactomannan. Ethics Statement

Ethics committee: Institutional Review Board, King Edward Medical University, Lahore, Pakistan. Approval number: 433/RC/KEMU, dated July 03, 2020.

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