Diagnosis of Enteroviral Meningitis by Use of Polymerase Chain Reaction of Cerebrospinal Fluid, Stool, and Serum Specimens

Abstract

PCR of fecal specimens obtained throughout the course of enteroviral meningitis had the highest clinical sensitivity for detecting enterovirus. It is recommended that, in addition to performance of CSF PCR, fecal samples collected from patients with suspected enteroviral meningitis should be tested by PCR, especially when the duration of symptoms is >2 days.

Enteroviral encephalitis in children: clinical features, pathophysiology, and treatment advances

“…For enteroviral neurologic disease other than EV 71-associated disease, the sensitivity of EV-PCR of CSF samples is reported to be 76-100%. [31][32][33][34] However, CSF viral culture results for patients with EV 71-associated neurologic disease are reported to be positive for only 0-3% of cases. 35 The sensitivity of EV-PCR of CSF samples from patients infected with EV 71 is also poor.…”

Simultaneous Detection and Differentiation of Human Rhino- and Enteroviruses in Clinical Specimens by Real-Time PCR with Locked Nucleic Acid Probes

“…HEV is a frequent etiological agent in infections of the central nervous system; in such cases, cerebrospinal fluid samples are the best source for specific diagnosis. However, HEV can be detected much more often in the stool or respiratory secretions, and the finding can give valuable information for clinicians (42). Therefore, it is often important and beneficial to combine the specific detection of HRV and HEV in samples from the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts.…”

RT-PCR for confirmation of echovirus 30 isolated in Belém, Brazil

“…It is likely that the type of cell and their different origins influence in isolation rates. Kupila et al [19] reported 17 (50%) EV-positive samples among 34 CSF samples from Tuku, Finland. They did not specify the cells used.…”

“…In the specific case of AM, the sample of choice is cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). However, since this methodology is time consuming, molecular procedures such as reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) have been used [16][17][18][19]. We used RT-PCR to look for Echo 30 isolates in cases of meningitis occurring in Belem, in northern Brazil, from March 2002 to December 2003.…”