Background and study aims: Despite the advances in the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, the meningitis and the encephalitis are still considered to be important causes of mortality and morbidity. Early diagnosis and starting immediate empirical therapy are the key factors of decreasing morbidity and mortality. We aimed to detect the frequency of bacterial meningitis among the suspected cases and to evaluate bacterial meningitis score (BMS) for detection the bacterial meningitis cases‎‎‎.
Methods: ‎This study was a cross-sectional included 48 patients admitted to the Mansoura Fever Hospital with clinical pictures suspected of meningitis. Full medical history, clinical examination, laboratory investigations and lumber puncture with CSF examination were provided to the participant patients. They were classified according to the results of CSF culture into two groups. The first group: included 12 patients with confirmed septic meningitis. The second group: included 36 patients with aseptic meningitis. The Application of bacterial meningitis score (BMS) was applied‎‎.‎
Results: The incidence of the bacterial meningitis in our study was 25% (12 from 48 patients).
The aspect of CSF was turbid among all the patients of septic meningitis, while was turbid only in in (8.3%) of aseptic meningitis cases. The total leucocytes count, polymorphs, and protein were significantly higher in patients with septic meningitis. The bacterial meningitis score has high sensitivity (91.7%), specificity (97.2%), PPV (91.7%) and NPV (97.2%) in the diagnosis of the septic meningitis cases‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎.
Conclusion: The BMS is a quick, simple score, and highly accurate, which could be used for the diagnosis of the septic meningitis ‎.