Detection of bacterial antigen in cerebrospinal fluid in patients with bacterial meningitis: a literature review.

Rapid detection of bacterial pathogen causing meningitis is very important to guide antimicrobial therapy before the standard culture result is available. Other than gram stain, one of the most useful rapid methods is the detection of bacterial antigen in cerebrospinal fluid. This article reviewed the methods of bacterial antigen detection for diagnosis of meningitis as well as a microbiology aspect of this life-threatening disease.