CSF markers for diagnosis of bacterial meningitis in neurosurgical postoperative patients.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the diagnostic usefulness of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) cellularity, protein, neutrophils, glucose and lactate for detection of postoperative bacterial meningitis. METHOD This prospective study was conducted in 28 postoperative neurosurgical patients from 2002 to 2005 at University of São Paulo. The CSF markers were plotted in a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to evaluate their accuracy. RESULTS Based on the area under ROC curve CSF glucose, cellularity, and lactate were considered good tests. Polymorphonuclear and protein did not achieve enough accuracy to be used clinically. CONCLUSION The CSF glucose, lactate, and cellularity can be used for the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. Moreover, it can be helpful to differentiate bacterial from aseptic meningitis.