Acute bacterial meningitis: time for a better outcome

Excerpt

Between 1935 and the mid-fifties, the fatality rate from acute bacterial meningitis decreased impressively from 85% to 37% [1]. This striking reduction was clearly due to the introduction of antimicrobial agents [1]. However, between the sixties and the mid-nineties, the prognosis did not substantially improve and the mortality rate remained roughly stable at 20–25% [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. It is unclear why there was no further improvement of the prognosis during three decades, despite new and more potent antibiotics such as third generation cephalosporins (cetriaxone, cefotaxime) and despite broader availability of, and more sophisticated, critical care medicine. …