    "INTRODUCTION||||||Histoplasmosis is an enzootic invasive fungal infection (IFI) of mam- mals worldwide. Veterinary species most commonly infected include domestic cats and dogs. After inhalation of microconidia found in soil, disease can be localized to the respiratory tract or disseminate via blood or lymphatics. After dissemination, multisystemic disease is most common, but disease can be localized to any organ. Affected sites include bones, joints, gastrointestinal (GI) tract, eyes, or skin.||||||Diagnosis can be made by finding  Histoplasma  yeast organisms in||||||tissue or body fluid samples, but doing so is not possible in some cases. Failure to identify the organism could be a result of disease in anatomic locations that preclude safe sampling or samples that con- tain low numbers of organisms. Culture of  Histoplasma  from affected tissues or body fluids is also confirmatory, but it is uncommonly used clinically, because turnaround time can be long ( 4 weeks). Because of these limitations, non-culture-based biomarkers often are used. These include  Histoplasma  antigen or anti- Histoplasma  antibodies. A commercially available enzyme immunoassay (EIA) detecting  Histo- plasma  antigen (MVista  Histoplasma  Quantitative Antigen EIA, Mira- Vista Diagnostics, Indianapolis, IN) in urine, has a diagnostic sensitivity of 89% to 95% in cats and dogs. Although cross-reactivity occurs with closely related fungal organisms occurs such as  Blastomyces , the test remains clinically useful because specificity  Write your response using less than 150 words.
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