Clinical applications of new cerebrospinal fluid analytic techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of central nervous system infections.

Advances in molecular biology and immunology provide new, highly sensitive and specific techniques that can be applied to analysis of cerebrospinal fluid to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of central nervous system (CNS) infections. In addition to improved accuracy and speed of diagnosis, these modalities may offer improved means of monitoring treatment efficacy, establishing prognosis, detecting organism resistance, and tracking epidemic sources. This brief review discusses a number of recent papers applying these methods, in order to illustrate their value and significance for clinical neurologic practice. Some of these applications are commonly available, whereas others are likely to enter the physician's armamentarium in the near future. As they do, they can be expected to improve the treatment of CNS infections.