Application of a molecular method for the classification of human enteroviruses and its correlation with clinical manifestations.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: A new molecular classification scheme has recently been adopted that groups all enteroviruses into four species, designated human enterovirus A (HEV-A) through D. In this study, we tried to demonstrate the correlation between this molecular classification scheme and clinical manifestations in patients.

METHODS

We retrospectively reclassified the clinical isolates of enteroviruses from the preceding 4.5 years in our virology laboratory using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, and reviewed the clinical manifestations of 138 pediatric patients.

RESULTS

We reclassified 23 isolates of the five serotypes into the HEV-A group, 110 isolates of 16 sero-types into the HEV-B group, five isolates into the HEV-C group, and no isolate of the HEV-D group. HEV-A species caused significantly more hand-foot-and-mouth disease (p < 0.001), herpangina (p = 0.029), and myoclonic jerks (p < 0.001) compared with HEV-B species. However, HEV-B species caused significantly more pharyngitis (p = 0.043), respiratory tract infections (p = 0.046), nausea and vomiting (p = 0.007), and aseptic meningitis (p = 0.001). The only death in our report was caused by coxsackievirus A16, which belonged to the HEV-A group.

CONCLUSION

The association between the molecular classification of enteroviruses and related disease patterns is an important finding. We suggest that this molecular classification could be applied in a clinical laboratory as an alternative method under certain circumstances, such as limited availability of antisera or questionable serotyping results, to identify the untypeable isolates.