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Spectrum of Meningitis in Adult at the Douala General Hospital
- Source :
- World Journal of Neuroscience. :144-151
- Publication Year :
- 2014
- Publisher :
- Scientific Research Publishing, Inc., 2014.
-
Abstract
- Objectives: Describe the clinical, aetiological and prognostic features of infectious meningitis in adults at the Douala General Hospital (DGH). Patients and Methods: We carried out a 5-year retrospective cross-sectional study at the DGH, on data from the registers of the bacteriology and biochemistry laboratories. Cases of meningitis were identified from the results of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis, and the patient clinical file was obtained. Cases files of patients aged 15 years and above were included. For each patient, sociodemographic, clinical features and hospital mortality data were extracted. Results: During study period, 1877 CSF analyses were recorded and 135 were enrolled for data analysis. Up to 74 patients (55%) were male and the mean age was 40.04 ± 12.5 years. The time lapse between the onset of symptoms and consultation was 12.24 ± 11.16 days. The main clinical signs were meningeal syndrome (96.3%), neck stiffness (71.1%), reduced alertness (64.4%) and confusional states (55.6%). The main aetiology was bacterial (45.19%) with Streptococcus pneumoniae (45.90%) and Neisseria meningitis (29.51%) leading. The other aetiologies were viral (21.48%), fungal with Cryptococcus neoformans (20%) and meningeal tuberculosis (13.33%). Fifty eight patients (42.9%) had a positive HIV serology. The mean duration of hospitalization was 9.05 ± 8.1 days, and the total in-hospital mortality was 25.18%. 117 patients (86.8%) had received antibiotherapy before diagnosis. Conclusion: The clinical features of meningitis in the DGH are as in classical description. However, the mortality is high and
- Subjects :
- Cryptococcus neoformans
medicine.medical_specialty
biology
business.industry
biology.organism_classification
medicine.disease_cause
medicine.disease
Surgery
Serology
Internal medicine
Streptococcus pneumoniae
medicine
Meningeal Tuberculosis
Etiology
General hospital
business
Neck stiffness
Meningitis
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 21622019 and 21622000
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- World Journal of Neuroscience
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........a3a43adb4cfbb7eca5f407e813d6b1b2