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Previous Volume 341:1314-1316 October 21, 1999 Number 17 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited Related Article by Vartanian, T. K. Related Article by Vartanian, T. K. PubMed Citation

To the Editor: The evaluation of a 53-year-old man with fever and rapid neurologic deterioration in the January 14 Case Record¹ is a good example of the use of laboratory tests for the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis that have little or no clinical utility. A lumbar puncture was performed, tests for bacterial antigens (Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Neisseria meningitidis) and syphilis were performed on cerebrospinal fluid, and cold agglutinins were tested in serum.

Although their use was in favor during the 1980s, bacterial-antigen tests have been shown to be insensitive and nonspecific and to have little, if . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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