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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter February 11, 2011

Quantification of cerebrospinal fluid lactic acid in the differential diagnosis between HIV chronic meningitis and opportunistic meningitis

  • Sérgio Monteiro de Almeida EMAIL logo , Kátia Boritza , Laura Lucia Cogo , Luis Pessa , João França , Indianara Rota , Marisol Muro , Cléa Ribeiro , Sonia Mara Raboni , Luine Rosele Vidal , Meri Bordignon Nogueira and Ronald Ellis

Abstract

Background: Approximately 40% of HIV infected patients have chronic meningitis at various stages during the infection, 59% are asymptomatic. This is a diagnosis of exclusion and a confounding factor in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis, any other causes of chronic meningitis by opportunistic or co-infection must be ruled out. The aim of this study was to analyze CSF lactic acid (LA) as an adjuvant biomarker in chronic meningitis due to HIV.

Methods: CSF LA was quantified in 223 CSF samples by the Dimension AR (Dade Behring, Deerfield, IL, USA), distributed into nine groups: 1) HIV positive with an increase in CSF WBCs (n=17); 2) HIV positive with normal CSF (n=20); 3) enterovirus meningitis (n=33); 4) Herpesviridae meningoencephalitis (n=30); 5) fungal meningitis (n=25); 6) tuberculosis (TB) meningitis (n=17); 7) toxoplasmosis (n=18); 8) neurosyphilis (n=6); 9) control group (n=57).

Results: CSF LA (median; IQR) was higher in samples with TB meningitis (5.5; 2.9–7.5 mmol/L) and Cryptococcus neoformans meningitis (3.9; 2.7–5.8 mmol/L) compated with samples with HIV chronic meningitis (1.7; 1.4–1.9 mmol/L) and other groups (p≤0.0001). For the diagnosis of HIV chronic meningitis, using a cut-off of 3.5 mmol/L, CSF LA showed high sensitivity and negative predictive value, although low specificity.

Conclusions: CSF LA helps to discriminate between C. neoformans or TB meningitis and HIV chronic meningitis: CSF LA can be included with the methods currently used to identify these specific pathogens, though it does not replace them. It is rapid, inexpensive and easy to perform, and can be used in developing countries.


Corresponding author: Sérgio Monteiro de Almeida, MD, PhD, Hospital de Clínicas, UFPR, Seção de Virologia, Setor Análises Clínicas, Rua Padre Camargo, 280, Curitiba, PR, 80060-240, Brazil Phone/Fax: +55 (41) 3360-7974

Received: 2010-8-6
Accepted: 2010-11-25
Published Online: 2011-02-11
Published in Print: 2011-05-01

©2011 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York

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