Value of cerebrospinal fluid IGF-Ⅱ,VE-cadherin and IL-27 in differential diagnosis of central nervous system infection

OBJECTIVE To explore the value of insulin-like growth factor Ⅱ（IGF-Ⅱ）, vascular endothelial cadherin（VE-cadherin） and interleukin 27（IL-27） in cerebrospinal fluid for differential diagnosis of viral, tuberculous and bacterial meningitis. METHODS A total of 120 patients confirmed with central nervous system infection in the hospital between Jul 2019 and Jul 2020 were enrolled. According to culture results of cerebrospinal fluid pathogens, they were divided into the viral encephalitis group（43 cases）, tuberculous meningitis group（40 cases） and bacterial meningitis group（37 cases）. And 95 patients without central nervous system diseases during the same period were enrolled as the control group. The levels of IGF-Ⅱ, VE-cadherin and IL-27 in cerebrospinal fluid were detected and compared among different groups. RESULTS The levels of IGF-Ⅱ, VE-cadherin, IL-27, procalcitonin（PCT） and C-reactive protein（CRP） in cerebrospinal fluid in the central nervous system infection group were higher than those in the control group（P＜0.05）. The levels of IGF-Ⅱ, VE-cadherin, PCT and CRP in the bacterial meningitis group were higher than those in the viral meningitis group and tuberculous meningitis group（P＜0.05）. IL-27 levels in the bacterial meningitis group and tuberculous meningitis group were higher than that in the viral meningitis group（P＜0.05）. The area under the ROC curves（AUCs） of IGF-Ⅱ, VE-cadherin and IL-27 in the differential diagnosis of viral and tuberculous meningitis were 0.586, 0.583 and 0.732, respectively. The differential diagnostic value of IL-27 was the greatest（P＜0.05）. CONCLUSION The levels of IGF-Ⅱ, VE-cadherin and IL-27 in cerebrospinal fluid increase in patients with central nervous system infection. The detection of the indexes can provide reliable basis for the differential diagnosis of viral, tuberculous and bacterial meningitis.