Khomyn O. Clinical, laboratory and immunological features of acute meningitis in children

The dissertation contains a theoretical discussion and practical connection of the current problem in the field of pediatric infectology - improving the differential diagnosis of acute viral and bacterial meningitis in children. comprehensive studies of cerebrospinal fluid (determining the activity of LDH, procalcitonin levels, proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines) to establish the features of local inflammatory and immune responses in patients with meningitis of various etiologies, established diagnostic value and informativeness of these studies. It was found that meningitis is characterized by activation of local intrathecal immune responses, with intensive production of interleukins in the CNS and thus significantly higher concentrations of cytokines TNFᾱ, IL-1ß, IL-10 in cerebrospinal fluid, compared with their content in the blood. The dominance of Th1 type of immune response in children with purulent meningitis and significant activation of Th2 with active production by tissues of the nervous system of anti-inflammatory cytokines in children with aseptic meningitis. It has been established that the results of determining the content of procalcitonin, TNFα, and IL-10 in the cerebrospinal fluid have a high diagnostic value for the differential diagnosis of meningitis.