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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Doctors now have a set of guidelines to help them quickly decide which children have viral meningitis or bacterial meningitis, the more dangerous of the two spinal fluid infections.
Bacterial meningitis can cause brain damage, disability and death. Viral meningitis usually clears up on its own with few lingering affects. Because tests to diagnose bacterial infections often take a few days, even children with milder viral meningitis must stay in the hospital and take strong doses of antibiotics.
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Researchers form Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School in Boston tested whether a set of criteria, called the Bacterial Meningitis Score, could accurately predict which children are least likely to have bacterial meningitis and thus save them from a costly hospital stay and needless antibiotic treatment.
Among the patients in the study, 121 had a bacterial infection while 3,174 had a viral infection. Only two out of 1,712 patients in the very low risk group actually ended up having bacterial meningitis, and bother were younger than 2 months old.
The authors write using the Bacterial Meningitis Score to determine which patients can go home without treatment could substantially reduce over-treatment of children with viral meningitis. However, they write, infants younger than 2 months of age who display symptoms of meningitis should be admitted to a hospital and treated with antibiotics.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006;297:52-60
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