You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Therapeutics
Dexamethasone improved disability in acute bacterial meningitis

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebm.8.3.86

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    (2002) N Engl J Med 347, 1549. de Gans J, van de Beek D.. Dexamethasone in adults with bacterial meningitis.. ;. :. –56.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science

    
 
 QUESTION: In patients with acute bacterial meningitis, does adjunctive treatment with dexamethasone improve outcomes more than placebo?

    Design

    Randomised (allocation concealed*), blinded {clinicians, patients, data collectors, outcome assessors, data analysts, data monitoring committee, and manuscript writers}†,* placebo controlled trial with 8 weeks of follow up.

    Setting

    52 centres in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and Austria.

    Patients

    301 patients (mean age 45 y, 56% men) who had suspected meningitis in combination with cloudy cerebrospinal fluid, bacteria in cerebrospinal fluid on Gram staining, or cerebrospinal fluid leukocyte count >1000/mm3. Exclusion criteria included hypersensitivity to β lactam antibiotics or corticosteroids; cerebrospinal shunt; antibiotics in the past 48 hours; and history of active tuberculosis or fungal infection, head trauma, neurosurgery, or peptic ulcer disease. All patients were included in the analysis.

    Intervention

    Patients …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Source of funding: NV Organon.

    • For correspondence: Dr J de Gans, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. j.degans{at}amc.uva.nl

    • Abstract and commentary also appear in ACP Journal Club.

    • ↵* See glossary.

    • ↵† Information provided by author.