A case of intractable epilepsy positive for the detection of measles virus genome in the cerebrospinal fluid and peripheral mononuclear cells using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction.

We report a rare case of intractable frontal lobe epilepsy with mental deterioration, in which the measles virus gene was detected from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMC) obtained 9 years after the first epileptic episode using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The patient had been immunized with an attenuated measles vaccine and had no history of clinically apparent acute measles infection. However the analysis of the sequence of the PCR product from CSF showed the circulating wild strain genotype at the time when the patient complained of his first epileptic episode.