Brief Clinical Report: EVALUATION OF ANTIOXIDANT STATUS IN CHILDREN WITH ACUTE BACTERIAL MENINGITIS AND ENCEPHALITIS

Abstract

Antioxidant status was investigated in children with acute bacterial meningitis and encephalitis to investigate the possible role of free radicals in children with meningitis and encephalitis. Our study included 16 children with acute bacterial meningitis, 13 with encephalitis, and 17 control subjects. Serum ceruloplasmin, uric acid, albumin, bilirubin superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) levels were studied in all subjects within 6 h of admission. There was a statistically significant difference between the groups for all parameters except for serum uric acid. All antioxidant activities except for albumin level were increased in the study groups. Albumin level was higher in the control group than those of meningitis and encephalitis groups. When the values of meningitis and encephalitis were compared, there was a statistically significant difference between the groups for serum SOD, GPx, ceruloplasmin, and albumin. In conclusion, our study showed that serum SOD, GPx, catalase, and ceruloplasmin were higher in children with acute bacterial meningitis and serum SOD, GPx, catalase, ceruloplasmin, and total bilirubin levels were increased in children with encephalitis. These findings suggest that antioxidant status was almost similar in both acute bacterial meningitis and encephalitis conditions in childhood.

Oxidative stress and enzymic–non-enzymic antioxidant responses in children with acute pneumonia

“…From the unchanged CAT levels, it can be speculated that CAT is not as effective as the GPx since the latter enzyme is much more active than the CAT in most antioxidant reactions. 29 Even though some investigators 24,25 and our present study revealed decreased SOD and GPx levels in pneumonia, our two previous studies 30,31 and those of Shukla et al 32 showed increased SOD, GPx and CAT levels in several infectious diseases such as meningitis, encephalitis, otitis media and tonsillitis. Similarly to Parks et al 33 and Aktan et al, 34 our present study showed that CAT levels remained unchanged in diseases such as experimental otitis media and pneumonia.…”

Investigation of antioxidant status in children with acute otitis media and tonsillitis

“…Their results indicate that SOD was locally produced in the middle ear [15]. In our previous study, all antioxidant activities except for albumin level were found increased in children with acute bacterial meningitis and encephalitis than those of control subjects [31].…”

Serum Bilirubin and Uric Acid Levels as the Bad Prognostic Factors in the Ischemic Stroke

“…The antioxidant species play an important role in numerous neurological diseases (Caksen, Dede, Cemek, Dulger, & Cemek, 2003). One of them, bilirubin (Bil), may reduce the risk of ischemic stroke (IS) possibly due to its powerful antioxidant properties (Perlstein, Pande, Creager, Weuve, & Beckman, 2008).…”