Clinical Epidemiological and Pathogenic Analyses for Acute Viral Infections of Central Nervous System in Hospitalized Children of Hunan Province, China

Background: Virus infection of the central nervous system is a common disease in children. The major causes of ineffective therapy are misdiagnosis and delayed interventions. Based upon our pilot study, consecutive specimens of cerebrospinal fluid were collected and detected.
Methods: From October 2012 to July 2014, a total of 161 cerebrospinal fluids samples were collected from the patients with a clinical diagnosis of viral encephalitis at our hospital. The technique of real-time fluorescence quantitative-polymerase chain reaction was employed.
Results: Viruses were detected in 71 cases with an overall detection rate of 44.10%. In our cohort, the average viral load was 198.24 ± 993.61 copies/μL. And the viral loads had no obvious correlations with hospitalization duration. Enterovirus had the highest detection rate of 18.01% and occurred predominantly in spring and summer. The highest detection rate was found in the 3-6 year age group. Most cases of Human herpesviruses-6 were detected in autumn. And Adenovirus positive cases were largely restricted for rural children. Only 1 Mumps virus positive case had an enlargement of parotid gland. None of 12 Measles virus positive cases had the classic manifestations of measles.
Conclusions: During the study period, 11 common viruses in cerebrospinal fluids were detected from hospitalized children of viral encephalitis. The detection rates have slightly increased as compared with earlier reports. And Measles virus and Mumps virus were increasingly detected. For positive and negative viral cases, no differences existed in gender, age, urban-rural region or clinical characteristics. And the positive cases of Enterovirus, Measles virus and Mumps virus have their unique profiles.