• Shima Javadinia, Mohsen Tabasi, Mehri Naghdalipour, Najmosadat Atefi, Ramin Asgarian, KhezerlooJamil KheirvariJKYoung Researchers and Elite Club, Tehran Medical Sciences Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran., and Azardokht Tabatabaei.
• Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Zabol University of Medical Sciences, Zabol, Iran.
• Afr Health Sci. 2019 Sep 1; 19 (3): 2372-2377.

BackgroundMeningitis, is a potentially life-threatening condition that can rapidly progress to permanent brain damage, neurologic problems, and even death. Bacteria and viruses cause the great majority of meningitis disease in infants and children. CRP is used mainly as a marker of inflammation.ObjectiveThis study was conducted to assess the diagnostic value of CSF-CRP levels for differentiating between septic (bacterial) and aseptic infantile meningitis.Methods49 hospitalized infants aged less than two months with suspected meningitis were enrolled in a cross-sectional analytic study. All of patients underwent lumbar puncture to obtain CSF. smears, cultures, cytological and biochemical analysis and latex agglutination testing were carried out on all CSF samples. Latex agglutination test was carried out on all CSF samples using a commercially available kit. CSF-CRP level of all infants was measured using the immunoturbidometric technique.ResultsOf 49 infants in this study, 20 and 29 cases were diagnosed as septic and aseptic meningitis, respectively. The CRP levels were obtained as 0.95±0.68 mg/L in septic and 0.16±0.36 mg/L in aseptic meningitis groups and this difference was statistically significant (p<0.001) between the two groups (0.79±0.32 mg/L). Based on the ROC curve, cut off levels for CRP was obtained 0.17 mg/L. At this level, there was 95% sensitivity and 86% specificity to differentiate septic and aseptic meningitis.ConclusionCSF-CRP has suitable diagnostic value in distinguishing between infantile bacterial from aseptic meningitis especially in cases of negative bacterial culture of the blood and spinal fluid.© 2019 Javadinia et al.

17 keywords...

hide…