114 patients with meningococcal infection were studied; 72 had group C infection and 42 group A infection. 14 patients had acute meningococcaemia, all of whom had group C infection and 9 of whom died. Clinical and laboratory findings were similar in patients with meningitis due to a group A and C organisms, but arthritis and cutaneous vasculitis were more common in patients with group C infecti...

BACKGROUND Suspected meningitis is a frequent reason for admission to hospital in the UK. While bacterial meningitis requires prompt antibiotic therapy to reduce mortality and morbidity, enteroviral meningitis, the most frequent viral cause, is almost invariably a benign disease. AIM To determine the clinical presentation, laboratory findings and outcome of meningitis by microbiological aetio...

INTRODUCTION Arthritis and endophthalmitis are both recognised complications of meningococcal infection. They may occur in the presence or absence of meningitis or meningococcaemia. Primary meningococcal arthritis (PMA) and endophthalmitis are important diagnoses to recognise as delayed treatment would result in permanent joint and eye damage. We report the first patient with both PMA and menin...

PURPOSE With this study we want to evaluate the role of dexamethasone adjuvant treatment in different clinical forms of invasive meningococcal diseases. WORK METHODS: This was a randomized, open label trial that was conducted in 147 individuals with meningococcal sepsis. All of the cases have been divided in two groups: (1) Cases with meningococcal disease and CNS infection, and (2) Cases with ...

BACKGROUND Sepsis causes extensive morbidity and mortality in children worldwide. Prompt recognition and timely treatment of sepsis is critical in reducing morbidity and mortality. Genomic approaches are used to discover novel pathways, therapeutic targets and biomarkers. These may facilitate diagnosis and risk stratification to tailor treatment strategies. OBJECTIVE To investigate the tempor...

BACKGROUND In the African meningitis belt, Neisseria meningitidis serogroup W135 has emerged as a cause of epidemic disease. The establishment of W135 as the predominant cause of endemic disease has not been described. METHODS We conducted national laboratory-based surveillance for invasive meningococcal disease during 2000-2005. The system was enhanced in 2003 to include clinical data collec...

Complement component 7 (C7) deficiency leads to the loss of complement lytic function, and affected patients show increased susceptibility to encapsulated organisms infection, especially Neisseria meningitidis. Recently, we have experienced a 20-year-old military trainee with meningococcal sepsis and meningitis who was diagnosed as having C7 deficiency based upon the undetectable serum C7 prote...

INTRODUCTION Cell death is a central event in the pathogenesis of sepsis and is reflected by circulating nucleosomes. Circulating nucleosomes were suggested to play an important role in inflammation and were demonstrated to correlate with severity and outcome in sepsis patients. We recently showed that plasma can release nucleosomes from late apoptotic cells. Factor VII-activating protease (FSA...

Purpose: The aim of this study is to use a defined population of patients with meningococcal septicaemia to calculate the incidence of orthopaedic complications. Methods: Medical records and radiographs were analysed retrospectively for all patients admitted to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children from 01/01/2001 to 31/12/2012 with a primary diagn...

Neisseria species other than N. gonorrhoeae have been reported to cause symptomatic urethritis in the male. Carpenter and Charles (1942) described seven such cases due to the meningococcus in which there were no signs or symptoms of meningococcaemia. Although several authors have described asymptomatic urethral carriers of N. gonorrhoeae (Bittiner and Horne, 1955; Landman and Gelmi, 1959; Paris...