Per Venge
The early and accurate discrimination between bacterial or viral causes of acute infections is key to the better use of antibiotics and will help slow down the fast-growing antibiotic resistance. This discrimination is possible to achieve by the assay of the biomarker human neutrophil lipocalin (HNL). By the measurements in serum sensitivities and specificities of >90% are achieved in both adults and children. In order to eliminate the need to produce serum a whole blood assay of an assay time of <10 minutes was developed in which blood neutrophils are activated to release its HNL. The diagnostic accuracy of this assay also showed sensitivities and specificities of>90% and was clearly superior to contemporary assays such as blood neutrophilcounts, CRP, procalcitonin and the expression of CD64 on blood neutrophils. This format lends itself to the development of a point-of-care HNL assay and will be a major step forward to accomplish the goal of accurately diagnosing patients with symptoms of acute infections within 10 minutes at the emergency room or at the doctor´s office.