Reliability of the herpes simplex virus immunofluorescent test in corneal disease.

Herpetic ocular disease never produces well-identifiable morphological aspects. It is expensive, complicated and slow to culture Herpes simplex virus. The validity of the fluorescent monoclonal antibodies test was investigated using corneal cells with or without a sure herpetic lesion. The tests, on 36 cases without sure herpetic lesions, were always negative, while of the 42 patients with a clinically ascertained herpetic lesion, 38 were positive (90.5%) and 4 negative (9.5%), two of these on account of inadequate tissue preparations. Thus, this method can prove useful and reliable for diagnostic purposes.