Latex agglutination test in the diagnosis of pyogenic meningitis.

Samples of cerebrospinal fluid (n=204) from pediatric patients with clinically suspected pyogenic meningitis were examined by direct microscopy, bacterial culture and Latex Agglutination Test (LAT). Latex Agglutination Test was done for detection of antigen of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae type b. Among 38 LAT positive cases, culture and/or gram stain was positive in only 20 cases and 18 cases were detected exclusively by LAT. Besides, LAT was useful in detecting the pre-treated cases as 11 out of 55 samples from pre-treated cases were positive by LAT in comparison to culture and/or Gram stain which detected only 4 of 55 cases. LAT is simple, rapid and more reliable test.