12th International Conference of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Bacterial meningitis occurs worldwide, mainly caused by Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae. Our objective was to evaluate the use of the qPCR method and culture in the diagnosis. We considered cases received from January 2015 to August 2019, at Adolfo Lutz Institute of Ribeirão Preto. Blood or cerebrospinal fluid samples were cultured according to international microbiology standards. The qPCR was performed including specific primers and probes for detection of lytA, bexA and ctrA genes. Among the 1035 samples received for culture, 7 strains of N. meningitidis, 27 strains of S. pneumoniae 2 from H. influenzae were isolated. Among 860 samples received for qPCR, 43 were positive for N. meningitidis, 72 for S. pneumoniae and 7 for H. influenzae. The introduction of qPCR in our laboratory showed greater sensitivity and should be performed simultaneously to the culture, which is the gold standard and allows the monitoring of circulating strains.