ArticleFrontiers in pediatrics2026
Persistent meningeal enhancement on MRI in an infant with culture-negative bacterial meningitis: a case report and systematic review of the literature (2014-2025).
Article in Frontiers in pediatrics, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Bacterial meningitis (BM) in infants may be complicated by persistent meningeal enhancement on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after clinical cure-a phenomenon frequently misdiagnosed as infection recurrence. However, long-term follow-up data on asymptomatic persistent meningeal enhancement in young infants remain scarce. Here, we report a rare case of 5-month persistent meningeal enhancement following culture-negative bacterial meningitis (CNBM) in a 70-day-old infant, and systematically reviewed 17 eligible studies on meningeal enhancement in infantile bacterial meningitis published between 2014 and 2025 to provide comprehensive evidence for clinical practice. Case presentation: A 70-day-old male infant was admitted on March 22, 2025, with a 2-day history of fever. Laboratory findings were consistent with severe bacterial infection (C-reactive protein [CRP]: 116.16 mg/L, procalcitonin [PCT]: 0.535 ng/mL), and lumbar puncture confirmed central nervous system infection (cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] nucleated cell count: 376.0 × 10 Conclusion: Asymptomatic persistent meningeal enhancement after clinically diagnosed CNBM in young infants may represent a benign manifestation of delayed post-inflammatory repair when alternative etiologies and active infection have been reasonably excluded. Clinical decision-making should rely on comprehensive integration of clinical symptoms, laboratory parameters, and imaging findings to prevent overtreatment based solely on isolated MRI abnormalities. Given the diagnostic limitations inherent in culture-negative cases, long-term serial follow-up is essential to confirm the benign prognosis of such imaging findings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.