[Pathophysiology of neuronal injury in bacterial meningitis and experimental adjunctive therapeutic approaches].

In bacterial meningitis, death and long-term neurological sequelae are caused jointly by several factors. Despite highly qualified intensive care and effective antibacterial therapy mortality rates remain high. Beta-lactam antibiotics, currently used for initial therapy of bacterial meningitis, lead to a rapid lysis of bacteria with a consecutive profound release of proinflammatory bacterial cell wall components, causing a substantial burst of meningeal inflammation. The only approved adjunctive therapy so far is corticosteroids. The use of nonbacteriolytic, protein-synthesis inhibiting antibiotics in experimental models of pneumococcal meningitis appeared to be a promising therapeutic approach towards neuroprotection by diminishing the inflammatory process.