10.22376/ijpbs.2019.10.1.p1-12 Volume 5 Issue 3 2014 (July- September) To study the efficiency of Polymerase Chain Reaction for the diagnosis of clinically suspected tuberculous meningitis, a rapid molecular technique was established. The conventional bacteriological methods rarely detect lessThan i greaterThan Mycobacterium tuberculosis lessThan /i greaterThan in CSF and are of limited use in diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM). This double blind study was, therefore, directed to the molecular analysis of CNS tuberculosis by PCR targeted for amplification of 123bp nucleotide sequence coding IS6110 insertion element. In this study, the efficiency of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), one of the most reliable and sensitive DNA-based assays, was compared with conventional Microscopy and Solid culture for the detection of lessThan i greaterThan M.tuberculosis lessThan /i greaterThan in cerebrospinal fluid specimens from patients suspected of TBM. Of the 69 CSF specimens from highly-probable TBM patients based on clinical features, 51 were positive by PCR (78.46%), whereas microscopy and culture results were negative. Thus, PCR was found to be more sensitive than any other conventional method in the diagnosis of clinically suspected tubercular meningitis. USHARANI BRAMMACHARRY AND MUTHAIAH MUTHURAJ CNS Tuberculosis, tuberculous meningitis (TBM), Polymerase Chain Reaction, Mycobacterium tuberculosis 70-77