Early identification of correlated risk factors can improve the prognosis of patients with postoperative intracranial infection.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: the aim of this retrospective study was to explore the clinical risk factors correlated to the prognosis of patients who suffered from central nervous system infection after neurosurgery. METHODS: the study included 113 patients who were diagnosed with postoperative intracranial infection. Several factors with clinical relevance were identified and analyzed by univariate analyses. The risk factors that showed any significant difference between the cases were analyzed by multivariate logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: Here we show that the duration of the drainage before infection (measured in days) (B -0.113, OR 0.893, 95% CI 0.805-0.991, P 0.033), the number of antibiotics used for the treatment (B-1.470, OR 0.230, 95% CI 0.072-0.738, P 0.013), the number of leucocytes in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (B -0.016, OR 0.984, 95% CI 0.970-0.998, P 0.027) are risk factors for the prognosis of patients with intracranial infection. Instead, the duration of antibiotic treatment (measured in days) (B 0.176, OR 1.193, 95% CI 1.063-1.339, P 0.003) resulted to be a positive factor for the recovery from the infection. CONCLUSIONS: our results suggest that the prognosis of patients with intracranial infection after neurosurgery can be improved by an early identification of these correlated risk factors.