Dexamethasone in acute bacterial meningitis

Abstract

Elizabeth Molyneux and colleagues (July 20, p 211)1 provide the most comprehensive report of a placebo controlled randomised trial of dexamethasone as adjunct therapy in acute bacterial childhood meningitis in a developing country. They found that dexamethasone as adjunct therapy in bacterial meningitis does not prevent death. In his Commentary, George McCracken Jr2 discusses the importance of this finding. The effect of dexamethasone on the reduction of neurological sequelae is less conclusive, because of the small number of children in the study with neurological sequelae.