The analysis of the validation cohort showed that LCN2 could discriminate BM from other CNS infections (including tuberculous meningitis, cryptococcal meningitis and virus/antibody-mediated encephalitis), with sensitivity of 0.88 (95% confident interval (CI), 0.77–0.94), specificity of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.88–0.94) and diagnostic odds ratio of 73.8 (95% CI, 31.8–171.4). Here, LCN2 is linked to Cryptococcal meningitis.