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Meningitis is a type of central nervous system infection.
Neurological infections are one of the most serious problems in medicine, since the survival of the patient depends fundamentally on their early detection in order to immediately proceed with the specific treatment. Meningitis is defined as inflammation of the meninges, with the consequent alteration of the cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid is very important for the diagnosis of meningitis, because its appearance will change, or not, depending on the type of microorganism that produces the picture.
Meningitis is sometimes accompanied by a process of inflammation of the brain that can lead to a decrease in the level of consciousness and other symptoms that suggest a more serious picture. When this happens it is known as meningoencephalitis.
The most well-known form of meningitis, due to its intense severity, is that of bacterial cause. But there are other types of infections that can also reach the nervous system and produce meningitis. In this way, other possible causes of meningitis are infections of viral origin (caused by viruses), which are the most common and most benign; and those of fungal origin (caused by fungi such as candida or cryptococcus, and which are much more infrequent). There are other types of meningitis that are non-infectious; that is to say, it is not microorganisms that cause inflammation, but certain diseases, tumors, parasites, or reactions to drugs that are not usually found in the cerebrospinal fluid.
Meningitis of viral origin, the most common, are mostly due to enteroviruses (causing intestinal infections), but it can also be caused by herpes viruses, HIV, mumps, or even West Nile virus. Many people have viral meningitis in the course of their lives and are not aware of it. One of the most important points when diagnosing a meningitis is to differentiate if the cause is bacterial or viral, since the survival of the patient is not the same in both cases and, consequently, the therapeutic attitude will be different depending on whether it is a other. On the other hand, the prognosis of meningitis caused by viruses, without encephalitis, is very good. It usually heals without sequelae in the vast majority of cases. The prognosis can be worse if it occurs in people with some underlying disease or some immunodeficiency, or if it occurs in young children or the elderly.
The cure of meningitis, between 5 and 20% of patients present some type of neurological sequelae. The neurological sequelae are more frequent in young children, the elderly and in pneumococcal meningitis. In childhood, the most frequent sequelae are deafness, mental retardation and epilepsy.
Currently, many of the children are vaccinated against most of the bacteria that produce meningitis.
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