Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Department of Biostatistics, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
J Clin Microbiol. 2023 Dec 19;61(12):e0073123. doi: 10.1128/jcm.00731-23. Epub 2023 Nov 28.
Despite the relatively high mortality and the difficulty in diagnosis, nearly one-third of patients hospitalized with a documented diagnosis of encephalitis did not undergo a lumbar puncture (LP). When an LP was performed, pathogen-specific testing was greatly underutilized. Infectious etiologies were most common, but over 40% of cases were idiopathic at discharge. These findings suggest that there is a substantial opportunity to improve the quality of care through more accurate and timely diagnosis.
尽管死亡率相对较高且诊断困难,但近三分之一的住院患者被确诊为脑炎后并未进行腰椎穿刺(LP)。当进行 LP 时,病原体特异性检测的利用率非常低。感染性病因最为常见,但出院时仍有超过 40%的病例为特发性。这些发现表明,通过更准确和及时的诊断,有很大的机会改善医疗质量。