Infection & chemotherapy
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Infection & chemotherapy · Sep 2013
Predictive performance of serum procalcitonin for the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis after neurosurgery.
Postoperative bacterial meningitis (PBM) is a serious potential complication after neurosurgery. Early diagnosis and introduction of antimicrobial therapy are necessary to reduce the rate of fatal outcomes from PBM. However, PBM is not easily differentiated from postoperative aseptic meningitis (PAM), which usually has favorable clinical outcomes. Serum procalcitonin (S-PCT) has been found to be a useful marker for distinguishing community-acquired bacterial from viral meningitis. We investigated the predictive performance of S-PCT for PBM in patients who underwent neurosurgery. ⋯ S-PCT showed limited performance for the diagnosis of postoperative meningitis. However, it could be a useful adjunct for the improvement of diagnostic sensitivity when used in combination with other inflammatory markers.