Neopterin in Diagnosis and Monitoring of Infectious Diseases

Table 1

Applications of neopterin measurements for monitoring of treatment response in infectious diseases.

Infection	Treatment	Type of sample	Change in neopterin levels observed	Reference
Human immunodeficiency virus	Reverse transcriptase inhibitors and highly active antiretroviral treatment	Blood, cerebrospinal fluid	Mean of 15.6 ng/mL for treated versus a mean of 22.3 for untreated HIV patients	[12, 22, 29–37]
Hepatitis C virus	Pegylated interferon combined with ribavirin	Blood	The rate of response was twofold higher among patients with pretreatment neopterin levels <16 nmol/L than in patients with levels ≥16 nmol/L	[38]
Mycobacterium tuberculosis	Antituberculotic treatment	Blood, urine	Levels declined on twice weekly measurements in all monitored patients with pulmonary tuberculosis on treatment and fell to below tolerance limits within 10 weeks of treatment in 6/10 patients	[39–41]
Plasmodium falciparum	Chloroquine	Urine	When clinical disease resolved within 3–7 days of treatment, neopterin levels normalized rapidly	[42]
Schistosoma mansoni	Praziquantel	Blood	Serum levels normalized on treatment	[43, 44]