Maria Francisca Rocha, Hamish D C Bain, Neil Stone, David Meya, Lucia Darie, Ahmed K Toma, Michael P T Lunn, Arpan R Mehta, Charles Coughlan
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Cryptococcal meningitis is an important global health problem, resulting from infection with the yeast Cryptococcus, especially Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii, which cause a spectrum of disease ranging from pulmonary and skin lesions to life-threatening central nervous system involvement. The diagnosis and management of cryptococcal meningitis have substantially changed in recent years. Cryptococcal meningitis often occurs in people living with advanced HIV infection, though in high-income countries with robust HIV detection and treatment programmes, it increasingly occurs in other groups, notably solid-organ transplant recipients, other immunosuppressed patients and even immunocompetent hosts. This review outlines the clinical presentation, management and prognosis of cryptococcal meningitis, including its salient differences in people living with HIV compared with HIV-negative patients. We discuss the importance of managing raised intracranial pressure and highlight the advantages of improved multidisciplinary team working involving neurologists, infectious disease specialists and neurosurgeons.
期刊介绍:
The essential point of Practical Neurology is that it is practical in the sense of being useful for everyone who sees neurological patients and who wants to keep up to date, and safe, in managing them. In other words this is a journal for jobbing neurologists - which most of us are for at least part of our time - who plough through the tension headaches and funny turns week in and week out. Primary research literature potentially relevant to routine clinical practice is far too much for any neurologist to read, let alone understand, critically appraise and assimilate. Therefore, if research is to influence clinical practice appropriately and quickly it has to be digested and provided to neurologists in an informative and convenient way.