Objective To investigate the clinical features of tuberculous meningoencephalitis.Methods The clinical characteristics and laboratory results of 126 cases who were diagnosed as tuberculous meningoencephalitis fromJanuary 2000 to April 2009 were analyzed retrospectively. Results The clinical manifestations of tuberculous meningoencephalitis included fever, headache, vomitting, hemiparalysis,paraplegia, mental anomaly, hypopsia, deafness, diplopia, muscular spasms, coma, and incomplete oculomotor palsy, etc. Vomitting which was characteristic symptom of tuberculous meningoencephalitis was found in 25 cases( 19. 8% ) . The diagnosis was confirmed more than eightweeks after the onset of the disease in 31 cases ( 24. 6% ) . The inhospital mortality rate of tuberculous meningoencephalitis was 14. 3% ( 18 /126) . The inhospital mortality rate of re-treatment patients was 42. 9% ( 6 /14) . In 41 patients with poor prognosis ( death or therapy failure) , 68. 3% ( 28/41) cases were complicated with military tuberculosis, which was higher than the overall occurrence of 41. 3% ( 52/126) . Conclusions Strict diagnostic criteria and atypicalsymptoms lead to delayed diagnosis, delayed treatment, and high mortality in patients with tuberculous meningoencephalitis, particularly in patients with military tuberculosis and re-treatment patients. There is still no effective treatment which have a significant impact on the prognosis.
Objectives To evaluate the effect and safety of mycobacterium vaccae in the treatment of recurrent treated pulmonary tuberculosis. Methods We searched PubMed (1997 to 2006), VIP (1997 to 2006), Wanfang database (1997 to 2006), The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Issue 4, 2006) and the National Research Register (1996 to 2006). Randomized controlled trials comparing the mycobacterium vaccae immunotherapy group and the control group were included. Two reviewers independently performed data extraction and quality assessment. Data were analyzed using RevMan 4.2.2 software by The Cochrane Collaboration. Results Eleven high quality trials were included. Meta-analyses showed that mycobacterium vaccae immunotherapy plus chemotherapy resulted in higher sputum negative conversion rate (RR=1.36, 95%CI 1.21 to 1.54), higher lesion absorption rate (RR=1.39, 95%CI 1.13 to 1.72), and lower lesion non-absorption rate (RR=0.46, 95%CI 0.36 to 0.60), compared with the control group. These differences were all statistically significant. No serious adverse events were reported. Conclusion As an adjunct to chemotherapy, mycobacterium vaccae is helpful for patients with recurrent treated pulmonary tuberculosis in terms of improving cell-medicated immunity, sputum negative conversion and X-ray manifestation. More high quality studies are needed for further analysis.