Etiology and laboratory abnormalities in bacterial meningitis in neonates and young infants
Abstract
We conducted a retrospective review of electronic medical records of all cases of bacterial meningitis in neonates and young infants at our institution from 2004 to 2014. Fifty-six cases were identified. The most common causative organism was group B streptococcus, followed by Escherichia coli and then Listeria monocytogenes. Fortyfour of the 56 patients in the study had abnormalities of the blood white blood cell (WBC) count. The most common WBC count abnormalities were leukopenia and elevation of the immature to total (I:T) neutrophil ratio. Six patients in the case series lacked cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis. Overall, just 3 of the 56 patients had normal WBC count with differential, CSF WBC count, and urinalysis. Only 1 of the 56 patients was well appearing with all normal lab studies. Our study indicates that bacterial meningitis may occur without CSF pleocytosis but very infrequently occurs with all normal lab studies and well appearance.Downloads
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Published
2017-04-21
Keywords:
Bacterial meningitis, neonates, young infants, serious bacterial infection, laboratory abnormalities.
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How to Cite
Kotzbauer, D., Travers, C., Shapiro, C., Charbonnet, M., Cooley, A., Andresen, D., & Frank, G. (2017). Etiology and laboratory abnormalities in bacterial meningitis in neonates and young infants. Clinics and Practice, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.4081/cp.2017.943
Copyright (c) 2017 David Kotzbauer, Curtis Travers, Craig Shapiro, Margaux Charbonnet, Anthony Cooley, Deborah Andresen, Gary Frank

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.