Applying the Bacterial Meningitis Score in Neonates Diagnosed Meningitis: A Single Center Experience.

Park,  Sun Young; Seo,  Kyoo Hyun; Lee,  Jae Min; Lee,  Eun Sil; Kim,  Saeyoon

doi:2017.24.1.26

Neonatal Med > Volume 24(1); 2017 > Article

Original Article

Neonatal Medicine 2017;24(1):26-31.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5385/nm.2017.24.1.26 Published online February 28, 2017.

Applying the Bacterial Meningitis Score in Neonates Diagnosed Meningitis: A Single Center Experience.

Sun Young Park, Kyoo Hyun Seo, Jae Min Lee, Eun Sil Lee, Saeyoon Kim

Department of Pediatrics, Yeungnam University College of Medicine, Daegu, Korea. sysnow88@hanmail.net

Abstract

PURPOSE
To identify the factors associated with differential diagnosis of neonatal bacterial meningitis at the earliest opportunities possible and to evaluate the value of the bacterial meningitis score especially in neonates.
METHODS
We conducted a single-center, retrospective study of neonates diagnosed meningitis at our hospital between January 2000 and March 2014. We compared the general characteristics, clinical manifestations, laboratory findings, bacterial meningitis scores between the bacterial group and the aseptic group.
RESULTS
Bacterial meningitis differs significantly from aseptic meningitis in platelet count, the cerebrospinal fluid polymorphonuclear leukocyte count, and the serum protein including also the albumin (P<0.05). Except two infants, the bacterial meningitis score over 2 accurately predict bacterial meningitis in the other 11 infants.
CONCLUSION
The bacterial meningitis score appears highly useful to identify neonatal infants with bacterial meningitis. However, its diagnostic and prognostic value is just ‘adjunctive’, because low score cannot rule out bacterial meningitis.

Key Words: Neonates; Aseptic meningitis; Bacterial meningitis