v,' The authors report a follow-up study of 103 American soldiers who were treated for brain wounds at one neurosurgical facility in Vietnam. The estimated mortality after evacuation from the war zone was 6% to 8%. Severe brain wounds, meningitis, and pulmonary emboli accounted for the majority of the late deaths. Thirty-four per cent had post-debridement complications such as retained bone fra...

We reviewed 116 patients, known to have talked before dying after head injury, to discover factors which had contributed to death but which might have been avoided. All the patients were admitted to a neurosurgical unit and had a neuropathological post-mortem examination. One or more avoidable factors were identified in 86 patients (74%); an avoidable factor was judged certainly to have contrib...

Bacterial infections of the central nervous system (CNS) continue to be an important cause of morbidity and mortality in children. The spectrum of bacterial infection of CNS includes; focal or multifocal infections like brain abscesses or subdural empyema; or more generalized or diffuse infections like pyogenic meningitis or ventriculitis. Focal and generalized infections may co-exist in an ind...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the diagnostic usefulness of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) cellularity, protein, neutrophils, glucose and lactate for detection of postoperative bacterial meningitis. METHOD This prospective study was conducted in 28 postoperative neurosurgical patients from 2002 to 2005 at University of São Paulo. The CSF markers were plotted in a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) c...

OBJECTIVE Post-operative neurosurgical patients are commonly associated with haemostatic derangements; many a times leading to development of overt disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and eventually death in some of them. The present study has analysed the factors that would predict the outcome in post operative neurosurgical patients with deranged haemostatic parameters. METHODS Thi...

Case 3 is a rare congenital abnormality of the inner ear which usually presents as recurrent meningitis. This abnormality is now well documented.4 It should be suspected as a cause of recurrent meningitis in a child who has a sensorineural deafness. The presence of fluid behind the tympanic membrane should make one suspicious and the diagnosis can be confirmed by tomograms of the inner ear. The...

Spontaneous or nosocomial Escherichia coli meningitis remains rare in healthy adults but is still carrying a high mortality rate despite adapted antimicrobial treatment for susceptible strains. A 39-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital with severe subarachnoid haemorrhage complicated by acute hydrocephalus. On hospital day 10, she developed Streptococcus anginosus septicaemia and urinary...

bacterial meningitis after spinal and epidural anesthesia is a very rare but serious complication. we report a case of meningitis developing a number of hours after a spinal block for caesarean section. no organism was grown but the csf pattern was suggestive of bacterial meningitis. severe neurological sequelae were present after three months of hospitalization. meningitis is a serious complic...