Isolation of Inoue-Melnick virus and detection of antibodies in coded cerebrospinal fluid specimens from patients with disorders of the central nervous system.

Inoue-Melnick virus was isolated from coded cerebrospinal fluid samples from 10 of 25 patients with chronic diseases of the central nervous system. Of 13 multiple sclerosis patients and 12 patients with a variety of other symptoms and signs 4 and 6, respectively, were positive. Replicate samples from the same patient yielded the same results, either positive or negative. Neutralizing antibody was present in cerebrospinal fluid at a dilution of 1:25 in the virus-positive patients. Only a single virus-negative patient was positive for antibody at this dilution.