anaerobic brain abscess

background: brain abscess remains a potentially fatal central nervous system (cns) disease, especially in developing countries. anaerobic abscess is difficult to diagnose because of cumbersome procedures associated with the isolation of anaerobes. materials and methods: this is a hospital-based retrospective microbiological analysis of 430 brain abscess materials (purulent aspirates and/or tissue), for anaerobic organisms, that were received between 1987-2014, by the microbiology laboratory in our institute. results: culture showed growth of bacteria116/430(27%) of the cases of which anaerobes were isolated in 48/116(41.1%) of the cases. peptostreptococcus (51.4 %), was the predominant organism isolated in four cases followed by bacteroides and peptococcus species. conclusion : early diagnosis and det ction of these organisms would help in the appropriate management of these patients.