AbstractContext: Prognosis of meningitis depends on early diagnosis and initiation of and treatment. The role of CSF markers like CRP needs to be evaluated in diagnosis of infectious meningitis.
Aims: To evaluate the diagnostic significance of CSF CRP and Serum CRP in cases of infectious meningitis
Methods Settings and Design: This was prospective clinical study which included the clinical evaluation and routine CSF analysis including CSF CRP and Serum CRP levels of 50 cases of meningitis and 50 other
control patients.
Statistical Analysis used: Analysis of data was done using SPSS-17. Independent t-test and chi-square test were used to calculate difference between two groups
Results: Our study showed that sensitivity of CSF CRP for bacterial, viral and tubercular meningitis was 88.8%, 10% and 9% respectively where as sensitivity of Serum CRP in bacterial, viral and tubercular meningitis was 100%, 10% and 90.9% respectively.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that CSF CRP is highly specific to diffrentiate pyogenic meningitis from tubercular and viral meningitis. We also recommend doing serum CRP along with CSF CRP to diagnose and differentiate pyogenic and tubercular meningitis from viral meningitis
Keywords: C Reactive protein (CRP); Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF); Meningitis.