Neonatal Med.  2017 Feb;24(1):26-31. 10.5385/nm.2017.24.1.26.

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

• Park SY
• Seo KH
• Lee JM
• Lee ES
• Kim S

• KMID: 2371412
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5385/nm.2017.24.1.26

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.

Keyword

Neonates; Aseptic meningitis; Bacterial meningitis

MeSH Terms

Cerebrospinal Fluid
Diagnosis, Differential
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn*
Meningitis*
Meningitis, Aseptic
Meningitis, Bacterial*
Neutrophils
Platelet Count
Retrospective Studies