Comportamiento de la meningoencefalitis bacteriana en el Hospital Pediátrico de Centro Habana, 2000-2012

Bacterial meningoencefalitis behavior in the Pediatric Hospital of Centro Habana, 2000-2012 Introduction: Bacterial Meningoencefalitis still are an important cause of morbidity and mortality and the main part of its victims are children. Objective: To analyze the behaivior of bacterial Meningoencefalitis. Method: We performed a retrospective, descriptive study of the morbidity and mortality of bacterial meningoencefalitis (MEB) in the Pediatric University Hospital of Centro Habana (HPCH) in the period January 2000 to June 2012 with the aim of analyzing MEB behavior regarding: risk factors, clinical characteristics, bacterial isolation, antibiotic therapy and complications. Relationship with mortality was established. Results: Of the 70 patients, 40 were confirmed and 30 suspicious. Survivals predominated (61) over the non survivals (9) and the highest number of deaths were in children less than 2 years with six deaths. The groups of age with the highest incidence were 5-18 years (27) and less than 2 years (24). Of all deceased, 77.7% had more than one risk factor and 60.7% who survived not (p <.05). The 85.2% (52) of the survivals had no complications but all deceased patients had more than one immediate complication (p<0.05) late complications were below 12% in the survivals. The most common causative agent was the pneumococcus with well established relationship with mortality (p<05). The antibiotic therapy of ceftriaxone plus vancomycin was used in 47 (67%) of children treated and was effective (p<.05). Conclusions: The mortality in our study is closely related to age and other risk factors, the presence of immediate complications and the etiologic agent