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Query: UMLS:C0085437 (bacterial meningitis)
 4,038 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A method of CSF cell culturing, based on observations of cultured cells isolated from 700 CSF specimens obtained for routine diagnostic procedures by lumbar puncture from patients who had no proven or suspected neoplastic disease, is described which enables the demonstration of proliferating mononuclear elements even when they are present in specimens with low cell count. Spread on surfaces of plastic and glass material, monocytes and histiocytes in CSF cell cultures can appear as polygonal or crescent shaped epitheloid cells, may assume spindle shapes, or transform into multinucleated giant cells. Some cells given rise to clones with different rates of proliferation, up to the formation of a monolayer. After short term culturing the cytochemical characteristics of the cells are comparable to those of the native cells. Phagocytosis in culture is possible. Cells with a high rate of proliferation can be isolated from CSF specimens in subacute non-bacterial inflammatory processes, in chronic meningitis, in the state of repair of bacterial meningitis and subarachnoid hemorrhage, after repeated lumbar punctures and other unspecific irritations such as myelography and pneumencephalography, and in the course of intrathecal cytostatic therapy.
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PMID:Monocytes and histiocytes in cell cultures of cerebrospinal fluid. Morphology of cultured CSF cells. 5 Oct 47

In 104 patients with bacterial meningitis admitted to departments of general medicine, the diagnosis before admission and the effect of previous antibiotic treatment were studied. Antibiotic therapy begun before admission in 30 patients did not affect the ability to make a bacteriological diagnosis. The duration of illness before admission was longer in the treated than in the untreated group. About 50% of the patients were admitted with diagnoses other than meningitis, although half these patients had distinct meningeal signs on arrival at hospital. In the whole series, 76% had meningeal signs on arrival. On the other hand, 95% of 108 patients with lymphocytic meningitis were admitted with a diagnosis of meningitis. The only significant clinical finding in the wrongly diagnosed group was a temperature higher than 40 degrees C on admission to hospital. The diagnosis before admission was not related to the treatment given. The findings illustrate the difficulties of diagnosing bacterial meningitis in the home.
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PMID:Difficulties in the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. Evaluation of antibiotic pretreatment and causes of admission to hospital. 6 46

The condition of the blood-CSF barrier can be evaluated by the simultaneous quantitation of marker proteins in serum and cerebrospinal fluid. The concentration ratios of albumin and alpha 2-macroglobulin, plotted versus the hydrodynamic radii are used as permeability parameter. There are wide ranging barrier disturbances during the early stages of meningitis. In mumps meningitis only slight disturbances were found, meanwhile in bacterial meningitis the barrier permeability was strongly increased. In both disease groups one may detect secretory fractions of both immunglobulins G and A. In some cases of mumps meningitis a prolonged humoral immune reaction was found.
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PMID:[Blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier and the local immune response in the course of meningitis in childhood]. 9 99

For the systematic study of the role of inflammation in the morbidity and mortality associated with bacterial meningitis, techniques for quantitation of the inflammatory reaction in the meninges of rabbits with experimental pneumococcal infection were developed. The brains of 19 infected animals were removed intact, and the area of inflammation in microscopic sections was quantitated by an electronic X-Y plotter connected to a computer. Exudate was maximal along the ventral surface of the brain at the level of the cerebellum. Inflammation increased progressively with time and peaked at 72 hr. In a separate group of 29 animals, lactic acid dehydrogenase concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid increased significantly during infection, and the rate of increase wirh time coincided with the increase in inflammation documented histologically. The described method of quantitating inflammation in the meninges during experimental meningitis makes it possible to study the increase in granulocyte involvement with time. The establishment of a direct relation between the concentration of lactic acid dehydrogenase in the cerebrospinal fluid and the inflammatory mass validates the use of lactic acid dehydrogenase as an indicator of inflammation.
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PMID:Experimental pneumococcal meningitis. II. Characterization and quantitation of the inflammatory process. 17 13

Adenylate kinase activity and lactate concentration were measured in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 5 patients with bacterial meningitis, of 4 patients with probable bacterial meningitis, and of 18 patients with serous meningitis. Furthermore, for comparison measurements were also performed in CSF of 27 patients with meningism. Concomitantly glutathione was measured in CSF in most of the patients. Significantly higher values of these 3 parameters were found in the CSF of patients with bacterial and probable bacterial meningitis compared with those having serous meningitis and meningism. Adenylate kinase activity and lactate concentration in patients with serous meningitis were significantly higher than in those with meningism. All patients with a clinical diagnosis of meningitis studied so far also displayed an adenylate kinase activity in their CSF. The determination of adenylate kinase, lactate and glutathione levels in CSF might be a useful aid for the diagnosis not only of meningitis but also for the discrimination between bacterial and serous meningitis.
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PMID:Cerebrospinal fluid content of adenylate kinase, lactate and glutathione in patients with meningitis. 21 82

We report a case of focal infection of the brain with cytomegalovirus (CMV) in a 14-year-old boy with metastatic lymphoepithelioma (nasopharyngeal carcinoma). Cytomegalovirus-bearing subependymal glia were only seen in the fourth ventricle, in close proximity to tumor cells, these were associated with an intense inflammatory cell exudate. The latter was due to enterococcal meningitis. There was no evidence of systemic CMV infection, and the typical encephalitis with glial nodules seen in acquired forms of the disease was lacking. We postulate that the infection gained access to the brain either with the tumor cells, which happened to carry CMV genome, or with virus-carrying polymorphonuclear leukocytes migrating to the bacterial meningitis. It is also possible that the proliferating subependymal glia were unduly susceptible to CMV when the host defense mechanisms were compromised.
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PMID:Localized cytomegalovirus encephalitis contiguous to metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma. 22 30

The concentration of cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP) in 16 cerebrospinal fluid samples from eight patients with bacterial meningitis due to several different organisms was determined. An age- and sex-matched control group of 12 patients with a variety of acute, noninfectious systemic and neurological diseases was also examined. To quantitate the amount of cAMP, a new, improved radioimmunoassay was used with the ability to measure 2.5 X 10(-15) mol of cAMP. The mean concentration of cAMP in the cerebrospinal fluid from patients with meningitis was 0.05 nM, and from patients in the control group it was 1.18 nM. The difference between these two values is statistically significant. The decreased cAMP concentration in the cerebrospinal fluid from patients with bacterial meningitis did not seem to be secondary to metabolism by bacteria or leukocytes, increased enzymatic degradation within the cerebrospinal fluid, or an artifact introduced by the collection and storage procedure. Since the concentration of cAMP in the cerebrospinal fluid is normally found to be within narrow limits and probably reflects intracellular cAMP levels, the results described in this study suggest that interference with cAMP metabolism in central nervous system tissue occurs in bacterial meningitis. This finding seems to be independent of the causative organism and might explain the pathogenesis of selected, neurological manifestations of this disease.
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PMID:Decreased cerebrospinal fluid cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate in bacterial meningitis. 22 99

The efficacy of cephalothin and cephaloridine in the treatment of bacterial meningitis was evaluated from a review of 106 cases reported in the literature. Fifty-nine percent of 34 patients treated with intravenous cephalothin responded suboptimally; those receiving daily doses of 12 g or more fared significantly better (P less than 0.025). In contrast, 74% of 72 patients treated with cephaloridine responded favorably; those who received concomitant intrathecal cephaloridine responded significantly better (P less than 0.005). These findings indicate that cephalosporin therapy for bacterial meningitis, without concomitant intrathecal medication, is unreliable and that this is probably due to inadequate penetration of the antibiotics into cerebrospinal fluid. In penicillin-allergic patients with pneumococcal, meningococcal, and hemophilus meningitis, chloramphenicol is the agent of choice. For staphylococcal meningitis, intravenous cephalothin at doses of 12 g/day with additional intrathecal cephaloridine at doses of 12.5 to 50 mg/day should be administered concomitantly.
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PMID:Cephalothin and cephaloridine therapy for bacterial meningitis. 23 48

A technique for inducing pneumococcal meningitis in mice and a description of the histopathologic changes that accompany this experimentally produced disease are provided in the present report. This infection of mice was investigated to determine whether it could serve as a suitable model for detecting agents that have potential therapeutic utility in bacterial meningitis in man. 21 antibiotics, belonging to six major classes were evaluated for efficacy in the experimental infection. The three most active agents proved to be amoxicillin, cephaloridine, and chlortetracycline. Up to this time, amoxicillin has not been commercially available as an injectable dosage form. However, in view of the compound's outstanding efficacy in the present experiments, it would be desirable to investigate its effectiveness in the naturally occurring disease in man.
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PMID:Pneumococcal meningitis-therapeutic studies in mice. 24 10

Cases of bacterial, non-tuberculous meningitis among Auckland children aged one month to 13 years were reviewed for the five year period September 1971 to September 1976. The aetiological agent was established in 203 of 227 cases. Haemophilus influenzae was the most frequent cause and together with Streptococcus pneumoniae accounted for all sequelae S. pneumoniae was responsible for most fatal cases. It is an unusually common cause of meningitis in Auckland, particularly in children under a year of age. Polynesians contracted bacterial meningitis almost four times as often as Europeans. For a Polynesian child the risk of death due to bacterial meningitis was 12 times that of European.
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PMID:Bacterial meningitis in children. 27 67


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