DETECTION OF HSV, CMV AND EBV BY THE POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION TECHNIQUE IN PATIENTS WITH INFLAMMATORY EYE-DISEASES

Herpes simplex virus (HSV), cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Epstein-Barr vir us (EBV) have been recognized as pathogenic agents of intraocular infl ammatory conditions. The ability of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR ) technique to amplify HSV, CMV and EBV DNA from aqueous specimens mak es this technique a valuable diagnostic tool for the detection of thes e viral pathogens in patients with ophthalmic lesions. We used PCR for the amplification of a 476 bp long sequence from the pol I gene of HS V genome, a 435 bp region of the immediate early-1 (IE-1) gene of CMV and a 375 bp sequence from the EcoRI B fragment of EBV genome. We exam ined 22 aqueous humour specimens from patients with uveitis and retini tis, inflammatory eye diseases, diagnosed clinically. We found HSV in 4 (18.2%), CMV in 6 (27.3%) and EBV in 1 (4.5%) out of the 22 examined patients. None of the 22 examined samples was found to be infected wi th more than one of the examined viral pathogens. These data confirm t he implications of the members of Herpesvirus family in inflammatory i nner eye diseases and the importance of PCR technique as a diagnostic tool in clinical virology.