Fungal pathogens can affect humans, animals, and plants, and they can be found in the environment or as part of the host microbiome. Fungal diseases present a broad clinical spectrum, ranging from superficial to invasive infections, and can cause outbreaks. During an outbreak investigation, the laboratory plays an essential role in verifying the diagnosis and helping to confirm the source of the outbreak. Immunodiagnostic assays are important tools and often relied upon for the diagnosis of fungal infections, since the gold standard assays of culture and histopathology are time-consuming and often require invasive procedures. Immunodiagnostic assays range from complement fixation and immunodiffusion to enzyme immunoassays and, most recently, to point-of-care lateral flow devices. In general, these assays provide results faster and offer good analytical performance. These characteristics make immunodiagnostic assays good laboratory tools for outbreak investigations. The aim of this review is to describe the principles, advantages, limitations, and availability of immunodiagnostics assays in outbreak investigations, based on the experience of a reference laboratory.

真菌病原体可以影响人类，动物和植物，它们可以在环境中或作为宿主微生物组的一部分被发现。真菌疾病的临床范围很广，从浅表感染到侵入性感染，都可能引起疾病暴发。在爆发调查期间，实验室在验证诊断和确定爆发来源方面起着至关重要的作用。免疫诊断测定法是重要的工具，通常被诊断为真菌感染，因为培养和组织病理学的金标准测定法非常耗时，并且通常需要侵入性程序。免疫诊断分析的范围从补体固定和免疫扩散到酶免疫分析，再到最近的即时医疗侧向流动设备。一般来说，这些测定提供更快的结果并提供良好的分析性能。这些特征使免疫诊断测定成为暴发调查的良好实验室工具。这篇综述的目的是根据参考实验室的经验描述爆发调查中免疫诊断测定的原理，优点，局限性和可用性。