Comparison of incidence of invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae disease among children before and after introduction of conjugated pneumococcal vaccine.

Objectives: The objective was to determine whether there has been a significant decrease in the incidence of invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae disease in the Louisville, KY, area since heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine was introduced in the winter of 1999-2000. A secondary objective was to collect demographic data regarding invasive S. pneumoniae disease in the Louisville, KY, area during the 1997-2002 period.

Comparison of mixed cell culture containing genetically engineered BGMK and CaCo-2 cells (Super E-Mix) with RT-PCR and conventional cell culture for the diagnosis of enterovirus meningitis.

Background: Enteroviral meningitis has traditionally been diagnosed by cell culture. More recently, molecular techniques and shell vials with a mixture of human colon carcinoma and genetically engineered buffalo green monkey kidney cells (BGMK cells) (Super E-Mix) have been described.

Objective: We compared the results of this new cell culture technique with two reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) techniques and conventional cell culture to assess the accuracy of these various methods.