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Clinical manifestations of Bacillus cereus meningitis in newborn infants
Author(s) -
Tokieda K,
Morikawa Y,
Maeyama K,
Mori K,
Ikeda K
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of paediatrics and child health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.631
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1440-1754
pISSN - 1034-4810
DOI - 10.1046/j.1440-1754.1999.00405.x
Subject(s) - medicine , meningitis , fulminant , incidence (geometry) , bacillus cereus , pediatrics , neonatal intensive care unit , autopsy , neonatal meningitis , surgery , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , escherichia coli , optics , genetics , biology , bacteria , gene
Bacillus cereus ( B. cereus ) meningitis sometimes occurs in patients with risk factors, which are associated with central nervous system (CNS) anomalies, surgical or anaesthetic access to CNS. We observed two cases of B. cereus meningitis in neonates without such risk factors. The clinical courses of both neonates were fulminant, and routine antibiotic therapy failed. Intracranial haemorrhage was evident at autopsy. According to the previous neonatal case reports and our experience, we found that six of seven neonates were premature babies admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, five died within a week of onset of the disease, and six had intracranial haemorrhage. We speculate that B. cereus meningitis may occur in neonates, even without any of the risk factors previously described in adult case reports, and that the clinical manifestations of the meningitis might be chjpccterized by the high incidence of intracranial haemorrhage and poor mortality.