[Is it necessary to perform a lumbar puncture in the evaluation of the febrile newborn infant without source?]

Lumbar puncture to detect bacterial meningitis is a recommended screening procedure to be performed in febrile newborn infants at admission to hospital.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the usefulness of this procedure performed at admission and eventually, in a second look if clinically justified.

PATIENTS AND METHOD

There were studied 1,841 febrile newborns consulting at the Emergency Department from January 1992 to December 2000 without source. All of them underwent a sepsis workup. The rate of meningitis incidence was calculated, and we analyzed the frequency of meningitis diagnosed in the initial evaluation and reappraisal.

RESULTS

There were 206 febrile patients with diagnosis of meningitis for an incidence of 11.2%, which 20 were bacterial (1.1%) and 186 aseptic meningitis (10.1%). In the initial evaluation 155 patients were diagnosed with meningitis (155/ 1.774 = 8.7%) and in reappraisal (mean 39,5 +/- 25,2 hours after) there were diagnosed another 51 cases (51/ 135 = 37.8%).

CONCLUSIONS

The meningitis was a common diagnosis in febrile newborns without source, with prevalence of aseptic meningitis. In almost 25% of cases we reached to this diagnosis by means of performing lumbar puncture after a reappraisal.

[Neonatal toxic shock syndrome due to Streptococcus pyogenes: case report and literature review]

The clinical history of a newborn child who died from toxic shock syndrome (TSS) due to group A Streptococcus (GAS) was summarized. Literature was reviewed by searching different databases and other sources. Previous to our patient, there were 6 neonatal patients with TSS due to GAS published with the clinical description of the cases and three others without detailed information. In conclusion, nowadays, infection due to GAS is not a frequent devastating disease during the neonatal period, but when it is present it can cause TSS with high lethality.