由于临床表现难以区分，区分细菌和病毒感染仍然是一个挑战。非感染性疾病，如恶性肿瘤、肺栓塞和风湿性疾病也可能伴有发烧。因此，患者经常接受抗菌药物的过度治疗，或者可能得不到足够的治疗。本文对一种新型蛋白质宿主特征测定法（MeMed BV 测定法）进行了全面综述，该测定法可区分细菌和病毒感染。重点是该检测在呼吸道感染中的应用，包括检测性能特征、临床概况和成本效益数据。还讨论了从使用单一炎症生物标志物（如 C 反应蛋白）到替代和多样化宿主特征生物标志物的变化。MeMed BV 检测是几种新型宿主生物标志物之一，与其他检测方法相比，它可以提供快速结果并表现出增强的性能。单一测试生物标志物。该检测方法已通过大量精心对照的临床试验验证，与 C 反应蛋白和降钙素原相比，该检测方法在区分细菌感染或细菌/病毒联合感染与病毒或非感染性发热原因方面具有改进的性能特征。然而，这些试验可能夸大了检测性能，因为带结果模棱两可的样本通常不包含在统计分析中。需要更多的现实世界研究来解决 MeMed BV 检测或其他生物标志物在门诊环境中的临床实施。

Distinguishing bacterial from viral infections remains a challenge due to clinically indistinguishable presentations. Non-infectious conditions such as malignancy, pulmonary emboli and rheumatological conditions may also present with fever. Consequently, patients are often over-treated with antimicrobial agents or may not receive adequate therapy.This article provides a comprehensive review of a novel protein host-signature assay, the MeMed BV assay, that distinguishes bacterial from viral infections. The focus is on the use of the test in respiratory tract infections including assay performance characteristics, clinical profiles and data on cost-effectiveness. The changing landscape from the use of single inflammatory biomarkers, such as C-reactive protein, to alternative and diverse host signature biomarkers, is also discussed.The MeMed BV assay is one of several novel host biomarkers that provide rapid results and demonstrate enhanced performance compared to single test biomarkers. This assay has been validated by a large number of carefully controlled clinical trials that demonstrate improved performance characteristics for distinguishing bacterial infections or combined bacterial/viral infections from viral or noninfectious causes of fever compared to C-reactive protein and procalcitonin. However, these trials may over-state assay performance as samples with equivocal band results are often not included in the statistical analysis. More real-world studies addressing clinical implementation of the MeMed BV assay or other biomarkers into ambulatory settings are needed.