Spontaneous in Vitro Reduction of Nitroblue Tetrazolium by Neutrophils of Adult Patients with Bacterial Infection

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Abstract
The spontaneous reduction of colorless nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT) to intracellular blue-black formazan deposits by neutrophils of 192 adult subjects was evaluated as a rapid, laboratory aid in the diagnosis of bacterial infection. Sixty-one of 65 patients with bacterial infection had more than 10 per cent formazan-positive neutrophils. Conversely, 101 of 102 subjects without bacterial infection, the majority of whom had inflammatory disease on some other basis, showed NBT responses of less than 10 per cent formazan-positive neutrophils. Elevated NBT responses were associated with a wide variety of infectious diseases due to classic pyogenic bacteria as well as nocardia and malarial parasites. Elevated positive responses soon returned to negative after initiation of effective therapy. Positive NBT responses could be induced in vitro with bacterial culture filtrates or high concentrations of endotoxin.