[Rapid diagnosis of adenoviral conjunctivitis]

Adenoviral conjunctivitis is contagious and it should be diagnosed rapidly. Adenoviral ocular infection showed epidemic keratoconjunctivitis due to Ad8 and pharyngoconjunctival fever due to Ad3 but those clinical pictures are changing because of the appearance of new serotypes of adenovirus such as Ad4, 19 and 37 which are related with acute conjunctivitis. The diagnosis of viral infection is generally time consuming and complex. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunofluorescent antibody (IFA) test, using monoclonal antibody to adenovirus hexon have been applied for rapid diagnosis. ELISA showed 75% sensitivity and 100% specificity in 59 cases with adenoviral conjunctivitis and was therefore shown to be more practical than IFA which showed only 67% sensitivity.