Countercurrent immunoelectrophoresis in the diagnosis of viral infections of the central nervous system.

Countercurrent immunoelectrophoresis was utilized in the study of 621 specimens of cerebrospinal fluid to determine the correlation of detection of viral antigens with the clinical diagnosis of aseptic meningitis and related viral infections. A panel of viral antisera was immunoelectrophoresed against 119 specimens from patients with suspected viral infections of the central nervous system (group I), 32 from patients with bacterial meningitis (group 2), and 470 from patients with no suspected infection of the nervous system (group 3). One or more precipitin bands were detected in 79% of specimens from group 1, 19% from group 2, and 4% from group 3. Paired acute- and convalescent-phase sera from 32 (78%) of 41 patients with precipitin bands detected by countercurrent immunoelectrophoresis demonstrated a fourfold or greater change in complement-fixing antibodies to the detected antigen. With refinements in antisera, countercurrent immunoelectrophoresis may become useful in the rapid laboratory diagnosis of viral infection of the central nervous system.