Study advances in biomarkers and technologies for diagnosis of bacterial meningitis

Bacterial meningitis (BM) is one of the most serious central nervous system diseases of childhood worldwide.However, for the patients who had received antibiotic pretreatment, the clinical symptoms, as well as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) composition, are not typical, the diagnosis tests, such as CSF Gram staining and bacterial culture, often present high false negative rates.All above factors add difficulties in distinguishing BM from viral meningitis.Till now, more and more biomarkers and diagnostic technologies had been proposed, now, the focuses on the recent advances in biomarkers like C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, CSF lactic acid and technologies like immunochromatography tests, real-time polymerase chain reaction, next-generation sequencing in the aspect of differentiating BM from viral meningitis in children were reviewed, in order to provide clinical suggestions for early diagnosis of BM. Key words: Bacterial meningitis; Viral meningitis; Procalcitonin; Lactate; Next-generation sequencing