Study - Steroid can help some meningitis cases

Taking steroids along with antibiotics can prevent brain damage and even death in some meningitis patients, a study found.

Meningitis, an infection of the fluid around the brain and spinal cord, can be caused by viruses or bacteria. Bacterial forms can be treated with antibiotics, but the antibiotics themselves can cause dangerous inflammation as the body rids itself of the germs.

Doctors in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Austria said they found that the steroid dexamethasone can ease the inflammation.

"We recommend dexamethasone treatment for all patients with acute bacterial meningitis," Dr. Jan de Gans of the University of Amsterdam.

The study involved 301 adult patients with bacterial meningitis.

Just over one-third of them had streptococcus pneumoniae, the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in the U.S. Fifty of those 108 were given placebos in addition to antibiotics. Of those, 17 died and 11 were left with serious brain damage. Of 58 who received the steroid with antibiotics, eight died and seven had serious brain damage.

The treatment did not seem to help those with meningococcal meningitis, another bacterial form, but de Gans recommended it anyway, saying the findings may have been less clear because the number of patients with the meningococcal form was small.