Acute bacterial meningitis in adults.

As stated by McGill andcolleagues, use of culture-independentmethods might be useful, particularlywhen cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)examination is done after theinitiation of antibiotherapy. Theseresults by Samra and colleagues havebeen confirmed in a study by Boulosand colleagues.3 Comparing ICT,culture, and quantitative PCR for CSFtesting, Boulos and colleagues foundthat ICT performs substantially betterthan CSF microscopy and culture.3 We believe that ICTs should be seenas a valuable and accurate method,probably not only in the absenceof molecular testing availability. Reliable detection of pneumococcalantigen in CSF with ICT (althoughoriginally developed for urinetesting) in case of pneumococcalacute meningitis has been reported.2Sensitivity is as high as 95.4%, andspecificity is as high as 100%. [Extracted from the article]