PEDIATRICS Vol. 58 No. 1 July 1976, pp. 105-109
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Use of Limulus Lysate for Detecting Gram-Negative Neonatal Meningitis

Donald Dyson M.D.1 and George Cassady M.D.1

1 Division of Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Alabama, Birmingham

The Limulus, lysate test was evaluated as a method for rapid detection of neonatal gram-negative bacterial meningitis. A total of 208 CSF samples were collected from 145 newborn infants suspected of having meningitis. Initial samples from all six babies with culture-proven gram-negative bacterial meningitis had positive Limulus tests within 30 minutes of incubation. Samples from 14 infants with gram-negative organisms isolated only in blood and/or urine, as well as from four neonates with gram-positive organisms in CSF cultures and from 13 with gram-positive organisms in blood cultures all yielded negative Limulus tests.

Thus, of 37 newborn infants with bacteria demonstrated in systemic cultures, only those six with gram-negative organisms in CSF had positive CSF Limulus tests. The CSF Limulus test was shown to be a rapid, reliable, and specific test for the detection of neonatal gram-negative bacterial meningitis.

Submitted on September 2, 1975
Accepted on November 4, 1975