EVALUATION OF A DIRECT IMMUNOFLUORESCENCE CYTOSPIN ASSAY FOR THE DETECTION OF HERPES-SIMPLEX VIRUS IN CLINICAL-SAMPLES

A comparison between a direct immunofluorescence assay (DFA) and the s hell-vial culture (SVC) was conducted to evaluate their efficacies acc ording to the quality and origin of the sample and the type of herpes simplex (HSV) responsible for the infection, The SVC detected all 58 H SV-infected samples, while the DFA detected only 49 (84.5%) positive s amples, The DFA detected HSV type 1 in 22 of 89 samples (24.7%) and HS V type 2 in 27 of 96 samples (28.1%), Compared with the SVC, the DFA h ad a sensitivity of 75.8% for HSV type 1 and 93.1% for HSV type 2, The sensitivity of the DFA depends on the quality of the sample, Thus, wh ile DFA is recommendable as a screening method, the SVC remains the me thod of choice for obtaining the maximum diagnostic yield from the sam ple.