• Miguel M Glatstein, Merav Zucker-Toledano, Alper Arik, Dennis Scolnik, Asaf Oren, and Shimon Reif.
• Dana's Children Hospital, University of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. nopasara73@hotmail.com
• Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2011 Nov 1;50(11):1005-9.

AbstractThe objective of this study was to establish the incidence of traumatic or unsuccessful lumbar punctures (LPs) in the authors' institution. This is a prospective study. Traumatic LP was defined as >400 red blood cells (RBCs) and unsuccessful LP as failure to obtain cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) after the first LP attempt. A total of 127 CSF were recorded over 1 year. The incidence of a traumatic LP was 27/103 (26.2%) using the sitting position and 3/24 (12.5%) in infants and children using the lying position. In total, 33 (26%) CSF samples had 0 RBCs. The incidence of traumatic LP was 24% when the procedure involved one LP and 50% when more than one attempt was required. RBC count was significantly lower in cases requiring only one attempt (P = .0074). Incidence of traumatic LP was independent of physicians' experience, sedation use or time of procedure, suggesting an intrinsic factor as the cause of traumatic LPs.

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