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Background: Community acquired bacterial meningitis (CABM) is a condition associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Treatment delay remains an area of concern and might be improved by awareness of meningitis among health care professionals., Methods: Retrospective observational study of patients with CABM between 2016 and 2021 in Eastern Denmark with a population of 2,700,000. Data was extracted from electronic health records. Treatment delay and mortality was analyzed using multivariate logistic regression and expressed as odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI)., Results: Of 369 patients 226 (61%) had treatment delayed more than 2 hours. Old age (OR 2.42, CI 1.22;4.77), comorbidity (OR 1.30, CI 1.00;1.70), suspicion of other infections than meningitis (OR 65.93, CI 20.68;210.20), stroke (OR 7.24, CI 3.11;16.86) and other diagnoses (OR 13.00, CI 5.07;33.31) were associated with delayed treatment. Treatment delay was associated with increased 30-day mortality (OR 3.07, 95% CI 1.09;8.67). Most of the treatment delay (82%) was due lack of suspicion of CABM., Conclusions: Treatment delay is a common problem associated with 30-day mortality in CABM. Awareness of CABM in undiagnosed patients is vital to achieve timely initiation of appropriate treatment. Special care should be shown for patients suspected of stroke or other infections., Competing Interests: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Nichlas Hovmand has nothing to disclose. Lene Fogt Lundbo has nothing to disclose. Gitte Kronborg has nothing to disclose. Perle Darsø has nothing to disclose. Thomas Benfield reports grants from Novo Nordisk Foundation, Lundbeck Foundation, Simonsen Foundation, GSK, Pfizer, Gilead, Kai Hansen Foundation and Erik and Susanna Olesen's Charitable Fund; personal fees from GSK, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead, MSD, Pentabase ApS, Becton Dickinson, Janssen and Astra Zeneca; outside the submitted work., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Background: An early appropriate response is the cornerstone of treatment for invasive meningococcal disease. Little evidence exists on how cases with invasive meningococcal disease present at first contact to emergency medical services., Methods: Retrospective observational study of cases presenting with invasive meningococcal disease from January 1st of 2016 to December 31st of 2020 in the Capital Region of Denmark with a catchment area population of 1,800,000. A single medical emergency center provides services to the region. Data was collected from emergency medical services' call audio files, data from the call receiver registrations, registrations from ambulance personal and electronic health record data from the hospitalization., Results: Of 1527 cases suspected of meningitis, 38 had invasive meningococcal disease and had been in contact with the emergency service. Most contacts were to the medical helpline rather than the emergency call center at initial contact to emergency medical services. All were hospitalized within 12 h. At initial contact, fever was present in 28 (74%) of 38 cases, while specific symptoms such as headache (n=12 (32%)), a rash or petechiae (n=9 (23%)) and stiffness of the neck (n=4 (11%)) varied and were infrequent. Cases younger than 18 years of age were more often male and more often presented with fever and rash/petechiae. Only 4 (11%) received prehospital antibiotic treatment., Conclusions: Cases with invasive meningococcal disease presented with fever and unspecific symptoms. Although few were acutely ill at their initial contact, all were admitted within 12 h. We suggest that all feverish cases should be systematically asked about specific symptoms and should be wary of symptom progression to optimize the early management if cases with invasive meningococcal disease., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is used for continuous risk-benefit evaluation of marketed pharmaceutical products and for signal detection. The Adverse Drug Event Manager (ADEM) is a service offered to clinicians employed at hospitals in the Capital Region of Denmark. The ADEM assists healthcare professionals in reporting suspected ADRs to the Danish Health Authority. The aim of this retrospective observational study was to quantify and describe ADRs reported via the ADEM in 2014., Methods: All ADR reports handled by the ADEM in 2014 were recorded anonymously and analysed descriptively., Results: A total of 484 ADRs were reported through the ADEM in 2014 (the median number of reports per month was 37; range: 17-78). The majority of the reports came from departments of internal medicine (61%), psychiatry (14%) and dermatology, ophthalmology or otorhinolaryngology (11%). The drugs most frequently reported were lisdexamphetamine (n = 40), rivaroxaban (n = 16) and warfarin (n = 15) (vaccines excluded). In 13 out of 484 reports, the ADR was associated with a fatal outcome., Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that an ADEM promotes and facilitates spontaneous ADR reporting and helps raise awareness about ADRs, including how and why they should be reported. Hopefully, this will assist national and European spontaneous reporting systems in their work to increase patient safety nationally and abroad., Funding: none., Trial Registration: not relevant. .