Neonatal meningitis
- 1Paediatric Infectious Diseases Unit, St George’s Hospital, London, UK
- 2Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA
- Correspondence to:
Dr P T Heath, Paediatric Infectious Diseases Unit, St George’s Hospital, Tooting, London SW17 0RE, UK;
pheath{at}sghms.ac.uk
- Accepted 2 September 2002
Abstract
Twelve years ago an annotation was published in Archives of Disease in Childhood regarding the antibiotic treatment of suspected neonatal meningitis. The authors recommended the use of cephalosporins rather than chloramphenicol and advocated intraventricular aminoglycoside treatment in selected cases. They noted the absence of clinical trials with third generation cephalosporins that showed an improvement in mortality or neurological outcome.
- CoNS, coagulase negative staphylococci
- CSF, cerebrospinal fluid
- EEG, electroencephalogram
- GBS, group B streptococcus
- IAP, intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis
- LP, lumbar puncture
- MBC, minimum bactericidal concentration
