title: The use of S100B and Tau protein concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid for the differential diagnosis of bacterial meningitis: a retrospective analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Patients with meningitis are often difficult to classify into bacterial (BM) or benign viral (VM) meningitis. To facilitate the differential diagnosis, S100B and Tau protein in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were measured and compared with standard laboratory parameters.
  
  
  METHODS
  S100B(CSF), Tau(CSF), and routine parameters (CSF leukocyte count, protein(CSF), lactate(CSF), serum C-reactive protein, blood leukocyte count and body temperature) were analyzed in 33 patients with microbiologically confirmed BM and in 19 with VM. Their classification accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were studied by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
  
  
  RESULTS
  S100B(CSF) concentrations were higher in BM than in VM patients (p = 0.03) and showed a promising accuracy (90%) for the differential diagnosis of BM versus VM. Its discriminative properties were comparable to routine parameters. Of all parameters, S100B(CSF) showed the highest specificity (100%) with an optimal cut-off of 3.1 ng/ml. Tau(CSF) concentrations were useless for the discrimination (p = 0.64).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In contrast to Tau(CSF), S100B(CSF) concentrations ≥3.1 ng/ml are promising to discriminate bacterial from viral meningitis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University Medical Centre Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Goerdt
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Blocher
authors.forename: Marija
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Djukic
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gerber
authors.forename: Annette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spreer
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nau
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Otto
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000372:Agglutination Tests; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016920:Meningitis, Bacterial / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009414:Nerve Growth Factors / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*; D012372:ROC Curve; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D064568:S100 Calcium Binding Protein beta Subunit; D009418:S100 Proteins / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016875:tau Proteins / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*
chemical_list: D009414:Nerve Growth Factors; D064568:S100 Calcium Binding Protein beta Subunit; D009418:S100 Proteins; C579160:S100B protein, human; D016875:tau Proteins