Utilidad de la determinación de adenosina deaminasa en líquido cefalorraquídeo para el diagnóstico de tuberculosis meníngea: experiencia de 4 años en un hospital de provincia / Usefulness of adenosine deaminase determination in cerebrospinal fluid for meningeal tuberculosis diagnosis: 4 years experience in a province hospital

The aim of this work was to study the usefulness of CSF adenosine deaminase determination in the diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis and determine if the proposed cutoff value of 7.1 IU/ml had the better sensitivitu and specificity. We retrospectively studied 148 patients, 12 with tuberculous meningitis and 136 with other central nervous system diseases. Adenosine deaminase values ranged from 3.6 to 31.2 IU/ml in patients with tuberculous meningitis and from 0.1 to 312 IU/ml in controls. The best sensitivity/specificity ratio (83.3 and 85.3 percent respectively) was obtained using a cutoff value of 6.5 IU/ml. It is concluded that CSF adenosine deaminase values are useful in the diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis and thet the cutoff value should be lowered to 6.5 IU/ml to improve its diagnostic yield