THE CAUSES FOR LOW SPINAL FLUID SUGAR IN BACTERIAL MENINGITIS: ANOTHER LOOK

[摘要] One of the most characteristic abnormalities of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in patients with bacterial and tuberculous meningitis is a decrease in its glucose content. This finding, first observed by Lichtheim, was initially attributed to utilization of glucose by the bacteria growing in the fluid This explanation, as many subsequent ones, has been abandoned in the light of conflicting experimental evidence, and at present the mechanisms inducing a low CSF sugar are enigmatic. Recent publications bearing on this problem prompt a review of the factors involved in lowering cerebrospinal fluid sugar.Goldring and Harford found that the utilization of glucose by concentrations of pneumococci equal to or higher than those usually seen in meningitis was too small to be measured and could, therefore, not affect the spinal fluid sugar in the face of a normal mechanism for its replenishment.

[学科分类] 儿科学