Application of Molecular Diagnostic Techniques for Viral Testing

Cobo, Fernando

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a cause of a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations such as CNS, genital and dermal diseases. HSV is the most common cause of nonepidemic sporadic acute focal CNS disease (mainly encephalitis). HSV can also cause aseptic meningitis, usually a self-limited disease that resolves without specific therapy. Because of this, there is a need for a rapid and accurate diagnostic test for HSV CNS diseases, so CSF PCR testing has been evaluated as a diagnostic test for HSV encephalitis and meningitis, being a rapid and a very high sensitivity and specificity diagnostic tool [48] . However, because neither the sensitivity nor specificity is 100%, HSV PCR results should be interpreted with caution. False-negative HSV PCR results could be possible and false-positive HSV PCR results can be also possible due to eventual contamination. Even so, currently it has been established that molecular amplification of HSV DNA is the new gold standard for the laboratory diagnosis of these infections.