Clinical characteristics,recurrent etiological analysis of recurrent purulent meningitis in children and its treat-ment strategy / 中华实用儿科临床杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics and causes of recurrent purulent meningitis and its treatment.Methods The clinical data of 36 children with recurrent purulent meningitis were analyzed retro-spectively at Tianjin Children′s Hospital from 1 995 to 201 4.Based on the underlying illness,the following examinations were done respectivelybrainstem electric response audi -ometry(BERA),temporal bone computed tomography,head magnetic resonance imaging(MRI),spinal core MRI,and blood immunoglobulin,etc.Results There were 24 boys and 1 2 girls involved in this study.The age of the initial onset in these patients ranged from 20 months old to 1 5 years old,with the average age of 5 year and 9 months old.There were 2 to 7 episodes in these cases.The etiology was identi-fied1 9 cases (52.78%)with congenital anatomical abnormalities,1 2 cases of congenital inner ear malformation with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage,1 case of ear -nose CSF leakage,6 cases of pilonidal sinus.Fifteen cases (41 .67%)had anatomical abnormalities,1 2 cases had head and facial trauma,1 case had nasal polyps surgery,1 case (2.77%)had a history of chronic mastoiditis,and 1 case had a history of cochlear implant surgery;1 case of congenital humoral immunodeficiency disease X -linked agammaglobulinemia -free;1 case (2.77%)had humoral immunodefi-ciency disease.The anti -infection treatment was adopted in the acute -phase and then CSF rhinorrhea repair,CSF oto-rrhea,cerebrospinal fluid leakage,repair of the inner ear,pilonidal sinus resection,supplementary intravenous immuno-globulin around once every 3 months was given respectively in the restoration -phase.Thirty -three cases revealed no recurrence up to 8 months till 1 0 years follow -up,3 cases lost -to -follow -up.Conclusions The recurrent purulent meningitis is a serious infectious disease of the central nervous system,which may result in disabled condition even life -threatening.In order to avoid purulent meningitis recurrence,the corresponding treatment should be chosen ac-cording to different causes.