Dexamethasone efficacy on bacterial meningitis--a retrospective analysis of Albanian adult patients.
J Infect Dev Ctries
; 3(11): 849-55, 2009 Dec 14.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-20061680
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Research on the effects of corticosteroids in bacterial meningitis (BM) yielded conflicting results. While some studies reveal that corticosteroids improve the outcomes in BM treatments, others provide strong evidence that patients do not profit from this treatment. We investigated the factors that may impact the dexamethasone efficacy in patients with BM.METHODOLOGY:
In this retrospective study, we analyzed the medical records of patients with probable acute bacterial meningitis hospitalized between 2002 and 2008 at the Infectious Diseases Department, University Hospital Centre "Mother Theresa" of Tirana, Albania. They were all treated with dexamethasone. For study purposes, patients were divided into two subgroups 1) Severely ill patients (Glasgow Coma Scale [GCS]RESULTS:
Sixty-seven patients analyzed had a mean age of 43.8 +/- 17.0 years old, forty-five (67.2%) of whom were males. The mean recovery time (RT) was 3.5 +/- 1.3 days, and four (6%) died. In the severely ill subgroup (GCSCONCLUSIONS:
This study suggests that the patients with lower GCS scores were significantly more likely to benefit from dexamethasone therapy. In this subgroup, high doses of corticosteroids can significantly reduce BM recovery time; however, patients with a high GCS do not benefit from dexamethasone therapy.
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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
Limite:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Aged
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Female
/
Humans
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Male
/
Middle aged
País/Região como assunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2009
Tipo de documento:
Article