Meningitis medical therapy
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Meningitis Main Page |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-In-Chief: Cafer Zorkun, M.D., Ph.D. [2]
Medical Therapy
Pharmacotherapy
Empiric Treatment
- Do not wait for the results of the CT scan and the lumbar puncture; empiric treatment should be started as soon as possible.
- Blood cultures should be drawn before starting the antibiotic therapy, and then the antibiotic treatment should be changed once the blood culture results are out.
- Empiric antibiotic treatment should be started within 30 minutes after the patient presentation.
- In case of high suspicion of pneumococcal meningitis in adult patients, 0.15 mg/kg IV Q6H dexomethasone should be administered for 2 to 4 days.
- The first dose of dexomethasone is given along with or 20 minutes prior to starting the antibiotics treatment.