Enteroviral polymerase chain reaction in the investigation of aseptic meningitis.

We used a nested polymerase chain reaction (nPCR) to seek evidence for enteroviruses in clinical samples from patients with symptoms of aseptic meningitis. When compared with conventional virus isolation methods on a total of 366 samples collected during 1994-1995, an increase in positivity from 6% to 27% was shown. The results indicate that nPCR would be a valuable aid to the laboratory diagnosis of enteroviral infections as it can detect those enteroviruses that cannot be identified by current isolation methods.