Denominator and Workflow Dependence of Age-Specific Viral Detection in Cerebrospinal Fluid

Figures

• 

  Figure 1. Per-target CSF molecular positivity for HHV-6, VZV, HSV-1, and HSV-2 by age group. Points represent positive results divided by all interpretable results for the specified target within each age group; error bars show 95% confidence intervals obtained from 10,000 patient-cluster bootstrap resamples. Target-specific numerators and denominators are reported in Supplementary Table S3. Corresponding data for all viral targets are reported in Supplementary Table S15. The confidence intervals quantify patient-resampling uncertainty conditional on the observed testing structure and do not incorporate structural uncertainty arising from target availability, ordering, workflow, referral, or other ascertainment changes. Abbreviations: HHV-6, human herpesvirus 6; VZV, varicella-zoster virus; HSV-1, herpes simplex virus type 1; HSV-2, herpes simplex virus type 2.

• 

  Figure 2. Composition of viral-positive CSF molecular detections by age group. Percentages use the viral-positive denominator within each age stratum and therefore remain conditional on target availability. Where space permits, segments are labeled with the absolute number of detections and the corresponding percentage; the total viral-positive denominator is shown to the right of each bar. These distributions describe laboratory target detections conditional on which targets were represented and should not be interpreted as etiologic fractions of clinically adjudicated CNS infection. Patient-cluster bootstrap 95% confidence intervals are provided in Supplementary Table S2. CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; CMV, cytomegalovirus; HHV-6, human herpesvirus 6; HSV-1, herpes simplex virus type 1; HSV-2, herpes simplex virus type 2; VZV, varicella-zoster virus.

• 

  Figure 3. Contextual age-specific pooled target-level CSF molecular positivity with patient-cluster bootstrap 95% confidence intervals. Point estimates are positive target results divided by all interpretable target results within each age group. Positive/total target-level counts are annotated adjacent to each point. This measure is not patient-, specimen-, or episode-level diagnostic yield and is strongly conditioned by panel width, target availability, and ordering structure. The confidence intervals quantify patient-resampling uncertainty conditional on the observed testing structure and do not incorporate structural uncertainty arising from target availability, ordering, workflow, referral, or other ascertainment changes.