[Meningoencephalitis caused by Herpesviridae family virus in Cuba. 1996-1998].

Herpesvirus isolation from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) has proven not to be very useful because of its low sensitivity; that is the reason why PCR has considerably improved the diagnosis of several viral infections of the central nervous system. We studied, by means of PCR, 253 CSF received in our laboratory from 1996 to 1998, which had a suspected diagnosis of herpesviral-associated neurologic disease (encephalitits or meningoencephalitis). Of these, 182 were from HIV seropositive patients and the other 71 were from HIV seronegative. The percentage of all positive cases was 22.5% in AIDS patients and CMV was the virus most frequently detected (13.7%). We detected a percentage of 29.5 of positive cases in immunocompetent individuals, being HSV the virus most frequently found. Other herpesviruses (varicella-zoster virus, Epstein-Barr virus, human herpesvirus 6) were also detected in some cases in both groups. Finally, we obtained clinical data from all positive patients and established a relationship with PCR results.