Diagnostic accuracy of cerebrospinal fluid lactate in confirmed cases of acute bacterial meningitis in children

Abstract

Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of cerebrospinal fluid lactate level in confirmed cases of acute bacterial meningitis in children Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in the Department of Paediatrics, King Edward Medical University/ Mayo Hospital, Lahore from January to December 2018. A total of 250 children, between two months - 12 years of age, of both the genders, with suspected acute bacterial meningitis were included by non-probability consecutive sampling. Each child was subjected to lumbar puncture for biochemistry, cytology, culture, and lactate level. CSF lactate level of 1.1-2.4 mmol/L was taken as normal, and >2.4 mmol/L was taken as cut off for acute bacterial meningitis. All collected data was entered and analyzed in SPSS version 22. A 2 x 2 table was made to calculate diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value for CSF Lactate. Results: The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy of CSF lactate taking CSF culture as gold standard was 100%, 60.61%, 17.27%, 100% and 63.6% respectively, with kappa of 0.19 and p value of 0.000. Conclusion: At a cut off value of 2.4 mmol/L, cerebrospinal fluid lactate level has a high diagnostic accuracy for acute bacterial meningitis. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.7.1682 How to cite this:Nasir H Afzal MF, Hamid MH, Laeeq A. Diagnostic accuracy of cerebrospinal fluid lactate in confirmed cases of acute bacterial meningitis in children. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36(7):1558-1561. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.7.1682 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.