Diagnostics of invasive meningococcal, haemophilus and pneumococcal disease by PCR assay

Objectives: Development of extended polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for non-culture detection of Nesseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumonie from invasive infections. Materials and methods: A method of PCR was optimalised on strains of Nesseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae b and Streptococcus pneumonie. Detection of pathogens was evaluated on 230 samples from patiens with invasive infection. Results: Positive results of PCR were found in 103 samples of 230 (44.7 %). The percentage of positivity was higher in CSF samples (57.0 %) than in serum (33.8 %) or blood (33.3 %) samples. Conclusion: PCR method enables etiological diagnostics in cases, where antibiotic treatment was started. PCR results are available earlier than the results of cultivation. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of PCR products enables clonal analysis of etiological agents even in cases with negative results of cultivation.