Patent ID: 8507210

Claim:
An in vitro method for determining that a subject having dyspnea has a bacterial infection, for determining the prognosis of a subject suffering from dyspnea caused by a bacterial infection, and/or for determining follow-up prognosis of the progression of a bacterial infection in a subject having dyspnea, comprising detecting and quantitating, in a biological fluid sample from said patient, marker analytes selected from a) neopterin as a first marker, and b) at least one second marker selected from i) a cytokine, ii) a cardiovascular marker, iii) a neurohumoral marker, iv) a precursor of said second marker, v) a fragment of said second marker, and vi) a fragment of a precursor of said second marker, wherein said detection and quantitation comprises contacting said sample with a diagnostic assay capture molecule which binds to the marker analyte, and detecting and quantitating the capture molecule:analyte complex, thereby determining the amount of the analyte in the sample; wherein if the sample contains at least the minimum cutoff value for neopterin of >10 nmol/l, and the sample contains at least a marker-specific minimum cutoff value for a second marker, the subject having dyspnea is determined to have a bacterial infection, the prognosis for the subject having a bacterial infection is determined by the amount the level of the marker is over the cutoff value, and/or if the subject having dyspnea has had a prior sample subjected to said diagnostic assays, prognosis of the progression of a bacterial infection is determined by comparison of the values of the follow up diagnostic assays with the prior values; wherein if the sample does not contain at least a marker-specific minimum cutoff value of both first and second markers, the subject is determined to have dyspnea due to a cause other than a bacterial infection, and wherein said second marker-specific cutoff has been predetermined to be the level at which the relative efficiency of prediction of bacterial infection by measuring both markers in combination is at least 23% greater than the efficiency of prediction of bacterial infection by measuring the level of neopterin alone.