A fair number of HIV+ people has normal neopterin levels so it would not
be a good screeing test for blood supplies.
Jeff Frelinger
On Fri, 2 Dec 1994 nhchpelt at rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de wrote:
> Sorry, my first posting was a bit unprecise.
> I can give part of the answer myself:
> I succeeded in remembering the name of the test - neopterin test.
> I found that neopterin is a marker if interferon-gamma mediated macrophage
> activation.
>> There are publications which deal with neopterin as a diagnostic marker for
> inflammatory processes, especially after virus infections. It is discussed
> whether neopterin is also a marker for the state of disease in AIDS and
> even in HIV-infected, asymptomatic persons.
>> The problem is, that neopterin occurs in the blood during a various kind
> of inflammations, e.g., arthritis. This might be a reason why a neopterin test
> is not "suited" for testing blood donations in terms of profit because
> many donations would have to be discarded if one does not want to use
> neopterin-"positive" blood.
>> Does anybody know more details about routine testing of blood donations
> for neopterin? Is it reliable for HIV-detection? Or is it only a test
> used in research? Is the test suitable for detecting any kind of (acute or
> subacute) virus infection? What is your opinion?
>> Thank you
>> Juliane Meyerhoff
>nhchpelt at rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de>>>
