METHODS: From May 01, 2022, to December 30, 2022, ten patients with culture-proven external ventricular drain (EVD)-associated ventriculitis and ten patients without EVD-associated ventriculitis had CSF preserved. Levels of α-defensins were compared between the two cohorts with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
RESULTS: There was a statistically significant (P ˂0.0001) higher level of CSF α-defensins in the ventriculitis cohort compared to the non-ventriculitis cohort. The levels of α-defensins were not affected by blood in CSF or bacterial virulence. Patients with other infectious conditions had increased levels of α-defensins but these levels were still statistically significantly (P ˂0.001) less than those seen in the ventriculitis cohort.
CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study shows that α-defensins have promise as a biomarker to aid in the diagnosis of ventriculitis. If larger studies support the findings here, this biomarker can help improve diagnostic accuracy and decrease unwarranted empirical broad-spectrum antibiotic use in suspected EVD-associated ventriculitis.
方法:从2022年5月1日至2022年12月30日,10例培养证实为EVD相关脑室炎的患者和10例无EVD相关脑室炎的患者保留了脑脊液。通过酶联免疫吸附试验比较了两个队列之间的α-防御素水平。
结果:与非脑室炎队列相比,脑室炎队列中脑脊髓液α-防御素水平有统计学意义(P=0.0001)。α-防御素的水平不受脑脊液中血液或细菌毒力的影响。其他感染性疾病患者的α-防御素水平升高,但这些水平仍比脑室炎队列中的水平低(P=0.001)。
结论:这项初步研究表明,α-防御素有望作为辅助诊断脑室炎的生物标志物。如果更大的研究支持这里的发现,该生物标志物有助于提高疑似EVD相关脑室炎的诊断准确性,减少不必要的经验性广谱抗生素使用.