Detection of influenza virus infection using two PCR methods

Richard K Zimmerman; Charles R Rinaldo; Mary Patricia Nowalk; G K Balasubramani; Mark G Thompson; Arlene Bullotta; Michael Susick; Stephen Wisniewski

doi:10.1155/2014/274679

Detection of influenza virus infection using two PCR methods

Adv Virol. 2014:2014:274679. doi: 10.1155/2014/274679. Epub 2014 Dec 9.

Authors

Richard K Zimmerman¹, Charles R Rinaldo², Mary Patricia Nowalk¹, G K Balasubramani³, Mark G Thompson⁴, Arlene Bullotta⁵, Michael Susick¹, Stephen Wisniewski³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Family Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3518 5th Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
² Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, PA 15261, USA ; Department of Infectious Disease and Microbiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
³ Department of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
⁴ Influenza Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30307, USA.
⁵ Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, PA 15261, USA.

Abstract

Rapid, accurate, and cost-effective methods to identify the cause of respiratory tract infections are needed to maximize clinical benefit. Outpatients with acute respiratory illness were tested for influenza using a singleplex reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (SRT-PCR) method. A multiplex RT-PCR (MRT-PCR) method tested for influenza and 17 other viruses and was compared with SRT-PCR using chi-square tests. Among 935 patients, 335 (36%) tested positive for influenza A and influenza B using SRT-PCR. Using MRT-PCR, 320 (34.2%) tested positive for influenza A and influenza B. This study supports MRT-PCR as a comparable method for detecting influenza among patients seeking outpatient care for acute respiratory illnesses.

Abstract

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