Adenovirnises(Ad) are considered to be second only to rotaviruses as the most significant cause of gastroenteritis in young children in Korea and thus it is essential to know the full spectrum of Ad serotypes routinely present in stool specimens from symptomatic patients. Sixty-six Ad isolates ar.d three questionable ones collected over a 2-year peiord were typed by standard microneutralization, restriction endonuclease digestion and PCR of viral DNA to be able to evaluate these assays comprehensively for their ability to identify Ad associated with gastroenteritis. A total of sixty-one isolates(88.4%) were typed: the predominant types were Ad type 41(Ad41) (26.2%), Ad2 (19.7%), Ad40 (14.8%), Ad5 (9.8%), and Adz (9.8%) which together accounted for almost 80% of the isolates. The remaining virus isolates were typed as Adl, 31, 34, 3, 25 and a mixture of 40/41. The incidence of Ad3l (4.9%) or Ad3 (1.6%) was relatively insignificant. DNA restriction analysis (77.5%) proved to be better than serum neutralization but not so when compared to a PCR based assay for identification of the enteric Ad serotypes (90%) in stool specimens. In this work, the PCR-based assay was evaluated as a tool for the rapid, yet highly sensitive identification of adenoviral DNA sequences in fresh clinical stool specimens.