Exempel på meningitis

• We developed a diagnostic decision rule for the indication of a lumbar puncture and empirical treatment for bacterial meningitis (9;10).

• One hundred and eleven confirmed cases of bacterial meningitis were identified.

• A total of 145 cases were classified as septicaemia alone (53 %), 71 as meningitis alone (26 %) and 50 cases had both septicaemia and meningitis (18 %).

• In each of these hospitals, lumbar punctures are routinely performed on patients with suspected meningitis.

• A total of 14 horses with records of meningitis, encephalitis and/or brain hemorrhage of undetermined aetiology were identified within the same time period.

• The rate of meningitis in the infected infants was 30 % while all the recently infected adults were asymptomatic.

• Fourteen patients with aseptic meningitis were re-hospitalized but all patients recovered fully without any neurological sequellae.

• One of the previous publications (7), however, studied children with meningitis only.

• This might be considered surprising since septicaemia is often a less discrete diagnosis than meningitis.

• Frequencies of symptoms and signs in patients with aseptic meningitis were different in patients younger or older than 1 year of age.

• About 25 children had severe symptoms, with four being admitted to local hospitals for meningitis.

• In all, 43 isolates recovered from 43 patients with meningococcal disease (meningitis and/or bacteraemia) were preserved for further study.

• Multiple cranial nerve involvement may be associated with basal meningeal involvement as seen in carcinomatous meningitis and sarcoidosis.

• Presentations compatible with 'meningitis' are more typical of late-onset infection, although some early-onset cases will present primarily with neurological symptoms.

• Therefore, the bacterium must first traverse the endothelial cell barrier to cause meningitis.