Cerebrospinal fluid Lipocalin 2 as a marker for detection of acute bacterial meningitis

Abstract

It is important to distinguish bacterial meningitis from aseptic meningitis during the acute phase of the disease, when clinical symptoms are often similar. This could help to avoid complication and to limit unnecessary antibiotic use and hospital admissions. Repeated CSF analysis should be performed for any patient who has not responded clinically after 48 hours of appropriate antimicrobial therapy. The aim of this present study is to test the reliability of CSF NGAL level in diagnosis and early differentiation between bacterial and aseptic meningitis. For this purpose, 70 patients were selected from total admission in Abbassia fever hospital with clinical presentation of acute meningitis, and CSF analysis suggestive of meningitis hospital between March 2016 and February 2017 with picture of meningitis. The following flowchart explain the classification of total number of patients admitted to Abbassia Fever Hospital during the study period.