The Utility of Pleural Fluid Lactate Dehydrogenase to Adenosine Deaminase Ratio in Pleural Tuberculosis

Respiration ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Amanda Beukes ◽  
Jane Alexandra Shaw ◽  
Andreas H. Diacon ◽  
Elvis M. Irusen ◽  
Coenraad F.N. Koegelenberg

In high-burden settings, the diagnosis of pleural tuberculosis (TB) is frequently inferred in patients who present with lymphocyte predominant exudative effusions and high adenosine deaminase (ADA) levels. Two recent small retrospective studies suggested that the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)/ADA ratio is significantly lower in TB than in non-TB pleural effusions and that the LDH/ADA ratio may be useful in differentiating pleural TB from other pleural exudates. We compared the pleural LDH/ADA ratios, ADA levels, and lymphocyte predominance of a prospectively collected cohort of patients with proven pleural TB (<i>n</i> = 160) to those with a definitive alternative diagnosis (<i>n</i> = 68). The mean pleural fluid LDH/ADA ratio was lower in patients with pleural TB than alternative diagnoses (6.2 vs. 34.3, <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.92 (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001) for LDH/ADA ratio and 0.88 (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001) for an ADA ≥40 U/L alone. A ratio of ≤12.5 had the best overall diagnostic efficiency, while a ratio of ≤10 had a specificity of 90% and a positive predictive value of 95%, with a sensitivity of 78%, making it a clinically useful “rule in” value for pleural TB in high incidence settings. When comparing the LDH/ADA ratio to an ADA level ≥40 U/L in the presence of a lymphocyte predominant effusion, the latter performed better. When lymphocyte values are unavailable, our data suggest that the LDH/ADA ratio is valuable in distinguishing TB effusions from other pleural exudates.

Author(s):  
Amanda Beukes ◽  
Jane Alexandra Shaw ◽  
Elvis M Irusen ◽  
Andreas H Diacon ◽  
Coenraad Frederik Nicolaas Koegelenberg

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Gabriel Yusti ◽  
Mariano Fielli ◽  
Alejandra Gonzalez ◽  
Graciela Torales ◽  
Alejandra Zapata ◽  
...  

The utility of the adenosine deaminase (ADA) assay in the diagnosis of patients with pleural tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is controversial. Forty-eight HIV positive patients with pleural effusion were evaluated; ADA assay was obtained in forty-three of them. Twenty-five patients presented diagnosis of TB. Patients with diagnosis of TB showed a median value of ADA of 70 IU/L (interquartile range (IQR) 41–89) and the non-TB group a median of 27.5 IU/L (IQR 13.5–52). Patients with diagnosis of TB had a median cluster of differentiation 4 (CD4) count of 174 (IQR 86–274) and the non-TB group had a median of 134 (IQR 71–371). Receiver operating characteristic curve was performed with an area under the curve of 0.79. The best cut-off obtained was 35 IU/L with a sensibility of 80% and a specificity of 66%. There was no correlation between CD4 lymphocytes count and the value of ADA in the TB patient group.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibel Yurt ◽  
Canan Küçükergin ◽  
Burcu Arpinar Yigitbas ◽  
Şule Seçkin ◽  
Hüseyin Cem Tigin ◽  
...  

Background: To evaluate and compare the diagnostic efficiency of serum (s) and pleural (p) levels of adenosine deaminase (ADA)-1, ADA-2, total ADA, and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) for the differential diagnosis of pleural tuberculosis (TB). Methods: Clinical and analytic data of 93 consecutive patients with pleural effusions from May 2012 to February 2013 were prospectively evaluated. The study population included 43 pleural TB, 23 malignancies, and 27 other exudates. The median and interquartile range of ADA-1, ADA-2, total ADA, and IFN-γ were evaluated according to their underlying diseases. Results: There were no significant differences in sADA-1 and sIFN-γ values among each group. pADA-1, pADA-2, total pADA, and pIFN-γ levels were significantly higher in patients with pleural TB than in other patients (p < 0.0001). As for pleural TB receiving operating characteristic (ROC) curves identified the following results. The best cut-off value for pADA-2 was 20.37 U/L and it yielded a sensitivity and specificity of 95.35% and 86%, respectively. Taking a cut-off value of 40.68 U/L for total pADA, the sensitivity and the specificity were found to be 88.37% and 88%, respectively. ROC curve identified 110 U/L as the best cut-off value for pμg/ml, while the sensitivity and the specificity were 74.42% and 68%, respectively. Finally, the best cut-off value for pADA-1 was 16.8 U/L and yielded a sensitivity and specificity of 69.77% and 68%, respectively. Conclusions: To distinguish pleural TB, pleural levels of ADA-2 have the highest sensitivity among the different diagnostic parameters and may find a place as routine investigation for early detection of TB in the future.


Diagnosis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Lippi ◽  
Camilla Mattiuzzi ◽  
Brandon M. Henry

Abstract Objectives Despite inter-individual variations in their diagnostic efficiency, dogs have been trained to investigate many human pathologies, especially cancer, diabetes, migraine, seizures and even infectious diseases. To this end, we performed a critical review and pooled analysis of current scientific literature on the performance of dogs trained for identifying severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-positive human specimens. Methods We carried out an electronic search in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science with the keywords “dog(s)” AND “sniffer” OR “scent” OR “smell” AND “SARS-CoV-2” OR “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” OR “coronavirus disease 2019” OR “COVID-19” within all fields, without date or language restrictions, to identify studies describing dogs’ performance for identifying SARS-CoV-2 infected material. Results Three studies could be finally included in pooled analysis, totaling 17 dogs (47% females), aged between 0.5 and 12 years. The pooled diagnostic sensitivity was 0.88 (95% CI, 0.84–0.91; I 2, 85.3%), the diagnostic specificity 0.99 (95% CI, 0.99–0.99; I 2, 97.4%), whilst the area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) was 0.979 (standard error, 0.003). Conclusions The notable performance observed in this pooled analysis would persuade us to suggest that adequately trained dogs could represent an intriguing and sustainable resource for purposes of rapid SARS-CoV-2 mass screening.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 331-332
Author(s):  
Franz Stanzel

Background: An important part of the investigation of pleural effusion is the identification of markers that help separate exudate from transudate. Objectives: The purposes of this study were to compare the accuracy of published and new sets of criteria to distinguish between exudative and transudative pleural effusions, and to determine whether serum biochemical analysis is necessary. Methods: An externally validated cohort study was performed. Pleural effusions were determined to be transudative or exudative on the basis of an assessment of the medical record by two clinicians blinded to biochemical results. Sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve were determined for each proposed combination of criteria. Results: Pleural fluid analysis was available for 311 thoracenteses in the main cohort and for 112 thoracenteses in the validation cohort. The best sensitivity (97% [95% CI 94-99]) and negative likelihood ratio (0.04 [95% CI 0.02-0.08]) for identifying exudative effusions were observed with criteria combining pleural fluid lactate dehydrogenase greater than 0.6 the upper limit of normal serum lactate dehydrogenase and pleural fluid cholesterol greater than 1.04 mmol/L (40 mg/dL). The overall diagnostic accuracy was similar to Light's criteria. Findings were similar in the validation cohort. Conclusions: Our proposed criteria using simultaneously pleural fluid lactate dehydrogenase and pleural fluid cholesterol can identify an exudate with a sensitivity and an overall diagnostic accuracy similar to Light's criteria. It avoids simultaneous blood sampling, thus reducing patient discomfort and potential costs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Joon Suh ◽  
Jaewon Jung ◽  
Bum-Joo Cho

Mammography plays an important role in screening breast cancer among females, and artificial intelligence has enabled the automated detection of diseases on medical images. This study aimed to develop a deep learning model detecting breast cancer in digital mammograms of various densities and to evaluate the model performance compared to previous studies. From 1501 subjects who underwent digital mammography between February 2007 and May 2015, craniocaudal and mediolateral view mammograms were included and concatenated for each breast, ultimately producing 3002 merged images. Two convolutional neural networks were trained to detect any malignant lesion on the merged images. The performances were tested using 301 merged images from 284 subjects and compared to a meta-analysis including 12 previous deep learning studies. The mean area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) for detecting breast cancer in each merged mammogram was 0.952 ± 0.005 by DenseNet-169 and 0.954 ± 0.020 by EfficientNet-B5, respectively. The performance for malignancy detection decreased as breast density increased (density A, mean AUC = 0.984 vs. density D, mean AUC = 0.902 by DenseNet-169). When patients’ age was used as a covariate for malignancy detection, the performance showed little change (mean AUC, 0.953 ± 0.005). The mean sensitivity and specificity of the DenseNet-169 (87 and 88%, respectively) surpassed the mean values (81 and 82%, respectively) obtained in a meta-analysis. Deep learning would work efficiently in screening breast cancer in digital mammograms of various densities, which could be maximized in breasts with lower parenchyma density.


1995 ◽  
Vol 41 (8) ◽  
pp. 1129-1134 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Clavé ◽  
S Guillaumes ◽  
I Blanco ◽  
N Nabau ◽  
J Mercé ◽  
...  

Abstract To determine the utility of serum amylase (AMY), lipase (Lp), pancreatic isoamylase (isoA), phospholipase A (PLA), and urine AMY in the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis, samples of serum and urine were obtained on admission and every day thereafter for 5 days from 384 patients with acute abdominal pain. Diagnostic accuracy, determined as the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, was &gt; 0.975 for serum AMY, Lp, isoA, and urine AMY. For each of these enzymes, a threshold value (twice to sixfold the upper limit of the reference values) offering diagnostic efficiency &gt; 95% could be determined. In contrast, accuracy and efficiency of serum PLA were low. The profiles of these enzymes in acute pancreatitis decreased in a parallel fashion over 5 days except for PLA. We conclude that diagnostic utilities are similar for serum AMY, Lp, isoA, and urine AMY for acute pancreatitis, provided that an appropriate threshold is established.


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