Meningitis is an unusual presentation of rickettsial infection. We report a patient who was confirmed by serology to have typhus fever (not scrub), but who presented with the typical findings of culture-negative bacterial meningitis. Neurological manifestations of different types of rickettsial infection are discussed.

Objective: Visual impairment is a common problem in tuberculous meningitis (TBM). Present study has been conducted to evaluate the prevalence of visual impairment at presentation and at 3 months. Methods: Twenty seven consecutive HIV negative patients with TBM were included. Visual acuity, colour vision, field of vision, and visual evoked potentials (VEP) were recorded at baseline and at 3 mont...

INTRODUCTION The early diagnosis and prognosis of acute meningitis in young infants (infants 90 days old or younger) have not been well studied. We therefore investigated the diagnostic and prognostic factors for acute meningitis obtainable within 24 hours of admission. METHODS Data were obtained through a retrospective case review of 55 young infants from 1991 to 1999 inclusive. RESULTS Th...

A fatal case of meningitis due to Rhodotorula mucilaginosa in a 28 year-old HIV-negative male with a history of Hodgkin lymphoma who underwent salvage chemotherapy is presented. Reviewing the literature we identified 13 cases with central nervous system infection due Rhodotorula spp. The disease usually occurs in HIV negative immunosupressed middle-aged males. It takes the form of subacute or c...

discussion pcr or enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (elisa) on serum or cerebrospinal fluid would be the inevitable basis for accurate diagnosis in such cases. case presentation we reviewed three patients diagnosed with aseptic meningitis due to acute non-mumps associated parotitis based on clinical and laboratory findings. while there are many similarities between the clinical characteristics ...

In order to evaluate the effect of intrathecal gentamicin on gram-negative bacillary meningitis, twenty-eight patients were treated with intralumbar or intraventricular gentamicin in combination with systemic gentamicin and with other antibiotics. Sterile cerebrospinal fluid was achieved in 21/22 (95%) episodes of documented gram-negative bacillary meningitis in patients who received more than ...

Introduction: Cryptococcal meningitis is a type of meningitis. It has conventionally associated with HIV infection. However, few cases are also described in patients with other forms of immunosuppression and in apparently immunocompetent individuals as well. Objectives: We reviewed 15 cases hospitalized and diagnosed with cryptococcal meningitis at Kasturba Hospital, Manipal in the last two yea...

colleagues [1] exploring the value of cytochemical markers for the diff erential diagnosis of meningitis in patients with a Gram-negative direct cerebrospinal fl uid (CSF) examination. We have some concern as regards the confounding factors in their study. Firstly, although lumbar puncture was performed immediately on patient admission, the timepoint to obtain the CSF samples relative to the on...

Correspondence When to do a lumbar puncture in a neonate Sir, We enjoyed Dr Halliday's annotation on neonatal lumbar puncture but felt that his discussion of the role of lumbar puncture in suspected sepsis left an unfortunate question mark hanging over this procedure.' It is important we feel to distinguish between early onset and late onset sepsis. In early onset sepsis the usual route of infe...

BACKGROUND The differential diagnosis between bacterial and viral meningitis is not easy in some cases. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis is essential for establishing this diagnosis. The objectives were to quantitate lactic acid (LA) concentrations in bacterial and viral meningitis, and other central nervous system (CNS) diseases in order to evaluate the diagnostic utility of CSF LA for discr...