Carbapenem treatment of meningitis.

Abstract

The carbapenem class of antibacterial agents is highly effective in vitro against the bacterial pathogens causing meningitis. Both imipenem and meropenem penetrate into the cerebrospinal fluid of children with inflamed meninges in the acute phase of meningitis. The wider clinical use of imipenem/cilastatin for the treatment of meningitis has been limited by the high incidence of seizures (up to 33%) in patients not having seizures prior to drug therapy. However, imipenem/cilastatin has been successfully used for the treatment of pneumococcal meningitis following failure of treatment with third-generation cephalosporins. The bacteriological and clinical efficacy of meropenem appears similar to that of cefotaxime in the management of meningitis in children and there was no significant propensity of either meropenem or cefotaxime to cause seizures. Meropenem has also been usefully employed to treat multi-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa meningitis. These data suggest that meropenem should be further investigated for use in the treatment of meningitis.