Peritonitis is the commonest complication of peritoneal dialysis and a major reason for treatment failure. Current diagnosis is based on clinical symptoms, cloudy effluent and a dialysate white cell count (over 100 cells/ml). A rapid point-of-care diagnostic test would accelerate diagnosis and potentially improve outcomes from infection. Here, in a clinical audit project, we used PERiPLEX â , a point-of-care device which detects when levels of matrix metalloproteinase-8 and interleukin-6 are elevated above a threshold within minutes in dialysis effluent, to assess whether it could confirm or exclude peritonitis in 107 patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis. Mean patient age was 64.6 years with a median duration of peritoneal dialysis of 13.3 months (interquartile range 6.3-33.5 months). Presence of peritonitis was confirmed by clinical criteria. There were 49 positive tests of which 41 patients had peritonitis, three had other causes of intra-peritoneal inflammation, three had severe urosepsis and two patients required no treatment. Fifty-eight tests were negative with one patient having a false negative result. The positive predictive value of the test was 83.7% (95% confidence interval 72.8-90.8) and the negative predictive value was 98.3% (89.1-99.8). Sensitivity and specificity were 97.6% (87.4-99.9) and 87.7% (77.2-94.5) respectively. Thus, PERiPLEX â could be used as a rapid point-of-care test that can aid the diagnosis or exclusion of peritonitis with a high negative predictive value.
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