Dengue is the most important arboviral disease transmitted to humans. In our laboratory, we have been working on the standardization of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnosis of this disease. In this work, we compared five commercial kits regularly used on reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) protocols: two Two-Step kits (SuperScript II RT/Super Mix kit and reverse transcription system/Taq DNA polymerase) and three One-Step kits (ready-to-go RT-PCR Beads kit, QIAGEN One-Step RT-PCR kit, and AcessQuick RT-PCR system). Thirty-one serum samples of patients with clinical diagnosis of dengue fever (DF) were analyzed by RT-PCR and serology. RNA extraction was done with the QIAamp Viral RNA kit, and cDNA synthesis and PCR done according to the manufacturer's protocol for the five kits. Out of the 31 serum samples collected from patients suspected of having dengue, 27 were IgM-positive, confirming the dengue diagnosis. Out of those, 24 were positive by the ready-to-go RT-PCR Beads kit, 25 were positive by AcessQuick RT-PCR system and 27 were positive by QIAGEN One-Step RT-PCR kit. On the other hand, only six samples were positive by the SuperScript II RT/Super Mix kits and 10 were positive by reverse transcription system/Taq DNA polymerase kit. The best performance observed with the One-Step kits was confirmed in spiked samples with known quantities of dengue-1 virus since they detected up 1 x 10(2) PFU/ml, while the most sensitive Two-Step kit detected up 1 x 10(4) PFU/ml. These data show that One-Step RT-PCR kits yielded a higher rate of dengue virus detection than the Two-Step kits and correlated well with the serological diagnosis.