Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Emergency Medicine Workup

Updated: Oct 02, 2018
  • Author: Pamela L Dyne, MD; Chief Editor: Russell W Steele, MD  more...
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Workup

Laboratory Studies

See the list below:

  • Laboratory studies are usually unnecessary in hand-foot-and-mouth (HFM) disease.

  • If clinical circumstances dictate, the virus can be recovered from the hand-foot-and-mouth lesions. Typically, the virus can be grown in culture or confirmed by immunologic methods.

  • Although not suggested since physical examination is usually diagnostic, a Tzanck smear performed on vesicular fluid would be negative for the presence of multinucleated giant cells, which may help to differentiate the disease from herpes simplex virus (HSV). [2]