Anesthesiology Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Anesthesiology, including details on clinical anesthesiology, evidence based practice, techniques.

Meningitis following spinal anesthesia: 6 cases in 5 years.

Rubin L, Sprecher H, Kabaha A, Weber G, Teitler N, Rishpon S

Haifa District Health Office, Haifa, Israel. lisa.p.rubin@gmail.com

We describe 6 cases of meningitis after spinal anesthesia associated with a single anesthesiologist over the course of 5 years. The earliest case occurred in 2000, and the other 5 cases occurred over the course of 14 months in 2004-2005. The case identified in 2000 was culture-positive for Streptococcus salivarius. The other 5 cases were culture-negative for this organism but in 2 cases, the cerebrospinal fluid was found to be positive for bacterial DNA that was identified as belonging to S. salivarius by sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. The association with a single anesthesiologist and a single hospital during a relatively short interval, however, lead us to believe that these occurrences are part of a series associated with possible violations of aseptic technique.

Published 10 September 2007 in Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol, 28(10): 1187-90.
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