Molecular Methods (16s-rRNA) Compared to Bacteriological Diagnosis of Meningitis

For treatment of patients with meningitis, rapid diagnosis of the agent is very important. Nowadays all of researches have approved qualification and efficiency of molecular tests. Detection of bacteria from CSF and blood is the major problem as a result of usage of antibiotics by patients. So, we researched on CSF samples by PCR test and used DG74 and RDR80 primers for 16s rRNA sequence. Our cases were 51 children with meningitis symptoms that had referred to Mofid Hospital in Tehran. These samples were different from culture, cell counter and protein glucose amounts. After researching we reached to these results that 23.5% of cases were positive for bacterial culture and 41.1% of them were positive for PCR test. So sensitivity of PCR was 95.23%, specificity of PCR was 96.66% and efficiency of PCR was 96%. In first group 8 specimen were PCR positive (88.8%). In second group, all of 12 specimens were PCR positive (100%). In third, 8 specimens were suspected for viral meningitis, only one case was PCR positive, so it had bacterial agent. In fourth group, all of 22 specimens were PCR negative. Therefore sensitivity and specificity of PCR test with 16s rRNA gene sequence in identification of bacterial agent in CSF was 95.23% and 96.66% respectively.