Meningitis in Cancer Patients: Changes Accompany Medical Advances

Meningitis in cancer patients is often clinically occult, and the causative organisms have changed in parallel with treatment advances.

Meningitis in cancer patients is an uncommon but serious disease with high morbidity and mortality. Advances in medical and surgical treatments for these patients have affected their susceptibilities to infections. To assess these changes, researchers retrospectively studied the records of cancer patients with positive CSF cultures (bacterial and fungal) from a large tertiary cancer hospital population seen from 1993 through 2004.

There were 79 analyzable positive cultures from 77 patients. Most patients (78%) had undergone neurosurgery. Only 5% of patient presentations included the classical triad of fever, nuchal rigidity, and mental status change. Most CSF samples were assessed in detail: CSF pleocytosis was present in 75% (median white b…

Reviewing Author

Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD