OBJECTIVE It is frequently thought that lumbar puncture (LP), is a mandatory procedure in all children who have fever and a seizure; because a convulsion may be the sole clinical manifestations of bacterial meningitis. To assess whether meningitis could be recognized using readily available clinical information. METHODS This study was done during a 4 yr period from 2002-2006. A total of 254 p...

OBJECTIVE This study aims to determine the sensitivity of modern computed tomography (CT) scanners in detecting subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and to determine whether there is a continued need for lumbar puncture to exclude the diagnosis. METHODS This retrospective study was conducted from January 2000 to December 2005. The study population consisted of all patients referred on suspicion of S...

Sir Lumbar puncture (LP) is an essential medical procedure for several clinical conditions. It is an invasive procedure by which physicians can provide sample of cerebrospinal fluid through a needle inserted into the lower lumbar area for diagnostic purposes (meningitis or subarachnoid hemorrhage). Injection of medications into the cerebrospinal fluid "intrathecally", particularly for spinal an...

Should Lumbar Puncture Be Part of the Routine Evaluation of Patients with Cerebral Ischemia? To the Editor: 1 read with interest the recommendations of the Cerebral Embolism Study Group on the treatment of stroke due to cardiac emboli (Stroke 15:779-789. 1984). The authors state that they do not routinely recommend cerebrospinal examination prior to anticoagulation. I disagree. Failure to perfo...

Correspondence When to do a lumbar puncture in a neonate Sir, We enjoyed Dr Halliday's annotation on neonatal lumbar puncture but felt that his discussion of the role of lumbar puncture in suspected sepsis left an unfortunate question mark hanging over this procedure.' It is important we feel to distinguish between early onset and late onset sepsis. In early onset sepsis the usual route of infe...