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Detection of Infectious Agents

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Cerebrospinal Fluid in Clinical Neurology

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Abstract

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis is of utmost importance to establish an early diagnosis of central nervous system (CNS) infections and to start appropriate therapy. Besides the basic diagnostics containing CSF white cell count, lactate concentration and protein analysis, substantial efforts have to be made to identify and characterise the causing pathogen. Decisive methods are bacterial and fungal staining, microbiological culture methods, antigen and serologic testings including the determination of pathogen-specific intrathecal immunoglobulin synthesis and nucleic acid amplification methods. As preanalytic requirements and the choice of analytical methods depend on the suspicion of bacterial, fungal or viral CNS infections, a close communication between the laboratory and the clinician is important.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, University Medical Centre Göttingen, University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Annette Spreer

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  1. Annette Spreer
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Correspondence to Annette Spreer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria

    Florian Deisenhammer

  2. Department of Neurology, Danish Multiple Sclerosis Center Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Finn Sellebjerg

  3. Department of Clinical Chemistry, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam Neurochemistry Laboratory and Biobank, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Charlotte E Teunissen

  4. Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

    Hayrettin Tumani

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Spreer, A. (2015). Detection of Infectious Agents. In: Deisenhammer, F., Sellebjerg, F., Teunissen, C., Tumani, H. (eds) Cerebrospinal Fluid in Clinical Neurology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01225-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01225-4_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-01224-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01225-4

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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