Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) may cause some serious neurological disorders: multiple sclerosis, meningoencephalitis, mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, etc. Detecting this virus and providing early diagnosis lead to improved outcomes. A rapid method based on real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) has been optimised to screen and quantify r HHV-6. HHV-6 viral load could be a potential marker of prevention, diagnosis and treatment in patients with epilepsy and other neurological

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... ers. The aim of our study is to optimize of HHV-6 infection detection in patients with epilepsy and meningoencephalitis using qPCR "in house" system. The 18 patients with epilepsy (10 children aged 5-14 and 8 adults 18-30 ) and 20 patients with meningoencephalitis (14 females, 6 males; mean age 37 [range: were included in the study. Randomly selected 20 gender-and age-matched healthy blood donors as controls were checked for evidence of HHV-6. We found HHV-6 in 6/18 (33%) of serum samples (SS) and in 8/18 (44%) of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) among the patients with epilepsy. For patients with meningoencephalitis: 9/20 (45%) in SS and 10/20 (50%) in PBL. For healthy blood donors: 0/20 in SS and 1/20 (5%) in PBL. Optimized "in house" qPCR system provides higher sensitivity in comparison to reference commercial kits. HHV-6 probably affects the development of mental health disorders and have to be monitored.