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. 2025 Jan 30;12(2):ofaf060.
doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofaf060. eCollection 2025 Feb.

Performance of α-Defensins in Diagnosing Nosocomial Ventriculitis

Max W Jacobs  1   2 , James B Doub  1   2
Affiliations

Performance of α-Defensins in Diagnosing Nosocomial Ventriculitis

Max W Jacobs et al. Open Forum Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Nosocomial ventriculitis can be an extremely difficult infectious disease process to diagnose, thereby exposing patients to increased morbidity and unwarranted aggressive antibiotics. Thus, novel ventriculitis diagnostics are drastically needed. In this study, we demonstrate excellent sensitivity and specificity of cerebral spinal fluid α-defensins to aid in diagnosing ventriculitis.

Keywords: cerebral spinal fluid; diagnostics; external ventricular drain; ventriculitis; α-defensin.

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Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest. J. B. D. has a patent pending for use of α-defensin in the diagnosis of ventriculitis. The other author reports no potential conflicts.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Evaluation of CSF α-defensin as a ventriculitis diagnostic. A, Violin graph shows a statistically significant difference (P < .01) in concentrations of α-defensins in CSF between the cohorts. Dashed line represents a cutoff of 220 mg/L. B, ROC graph indicates an area under the curve of 0.9714 (P < .0001; 95% CI, .9357–1.000). C, Violin graph illustrates concentrations of α-defensins in CSF after 7 days of antibiotics in which there was a significant difference (P < .01) vs the time of initial diagnosis. Dashed line represents a cutoff of 220 mg/L. D, Violin graph shows stability of CSF α-defensin concentrations after 4 hours at room temperature in which there was no significant change. CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; ROC, receiver operating characteristic.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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