Pediatrics: The new algorithm effectively distinguishes bacterial and sterile meningitis

New biomarkers, such as calcitonin and C-reactive proteins, may help identify children with low or high risk of bacterial meningitis.
recently, a Spanish study aimed at developing and validating a score (MSE) to distinguish between bacterial meningitis and aseptic meningitis in children with initial evaluation of meningitis in emergency departments has been published online in Pediatrics.
study included children aged 29 to 14 who were treated in 25 Spanish emergency departments.
used retrospective queues from 2011 to 2016 as a collection of inferences, and forward-looking queues recruited between 2017 and 2018 as validation sets.
results, 917 cases of aseptic meningitis and 92 cases of bacterial meningitis were included in 1009 patients.
using multivariate logic regression analysis, the researchers identified the following predictors of bacterial meningitis from the inference concentration: calcitoninogen (PCT) - 1.2 ng/mL, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Proteins, 80 mg/dL, CSF absolutely neutral granulocytes, 1000/mm3, C-reactive proteins, 40 mg/L.
using the inference set, the researchers developed MSE, which assigned 3 points to calcitonin, 2 points to CSF protein assignment, and 1 point to other variables.
MSE≥1 predictable bacterial meningitis with a sensitivity of 100% (95% confidence interval (CI: 95.0%-100%), specific 83.2 (95%CI: 80.6-85.5) and negative forecast of 100% (95% CI 99.4-100).
, the results show that MSE can accurately distinguish between bacterial and sterile meningitis in children with CSF thoracicitis.
online: Child bacterial and non-bacterial meningitis identification model (MSE score)