Clinical implications of nucleic acid amplification methods for the diagnosis of viral infections of the nervous system.

Amplification of viral nucleic acids from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) has considerably improved the diagnosis of several acute, subacute and chronic viral infections of the nervous system. In herpes simplex virus (HSV) encephalitis (HSE) the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has become the method of choice for the rapid, non invasive diagnosis. Other herpes virus associated diseases which can now be reliably diagnosed are encephalitis, ventriculoencephalitis, polymyeloradiculitis, myelitis and an inflammatory polyradiculoneuropathy caused by cytomegalovirus (CMV), HSV, varicella-zoster virus (VZV) or Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), EBV associated primary B-cell-lymphoma of the brain, acute aseptic meningitis in young adults allied with VZV, and meningoencephalitis with recurrent seizures due to human herpes virus type 6 (HHV-6). In AIDS patients, PCR has helped to differentiate lesions either due to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) itself or to opportunistic infections such as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) caused by JC virus (JCV) or CMV related complications. HIV can be detected early in the course of infection in the CSF and the amount of proviral DNA in CSF cells seems to be correlated with the severity and/or progression of neurological signs and symptoms. Acute epidemic aseptic meningitis caused by enterovirus infections can now be reliably diagnosed and typed by reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR). Meningitis cases caused by vaccination with the Jeryl Lynn and Urabe vaccine strain of mumps virus have been identified using RT-PCR and sequencing of the amplified products (amplicon).