BMJ  2008;336:1367-1370 (14 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.a129

Practice

Guidelines

Management of invasive meningococcal disease in children and young people: summary of SIGN guidelines

¹ Department of Anaesthesia and Paediatric Critical Care, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh EH9 1LF , ² Department of Public Health and Health Policy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, ³ High Dependency Unit, Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital, Aberdeen, ⁴ Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, ⁵ Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network, Edinburgh

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Despite the successful introduction of immunisation with meningococcal group C conjugate vaccine in 1999,¹ invasive meningococcal disease continues to cause substantial morbidity and mortality.² Most deaths occur in the first 24 hours, often before specialist care starts. The challenge therefore is to identify those patients who will progress rapidly from non-specific early presentation to life threatening disease.³

Major changes to the organisation of health care in the United Kingdom, particularly in the provision of resuscitation and paediatric intensive care, have been associated with dramatically improved outcomes over recent decades.^{4 5} However, lack of high quality evidence to inform changes in clinical practice has been a particular challenge in developing this evidence based guideline. This article summarises the most recent guidance from the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) on the management of invasive meningococcal disease in children and young people.⁶

SIGN recommendations are based on systematic reviews of best available evidence. The . . . [Full text of this article]

Evidence based guideline
Flow chart for early management in primary care
Selection of initial antibiotics in hospital care
Use of corticosteroids
Activated protein C
Follow-up
Organisational aspects of care

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Flegg, P. J (2008). Cerebral perfusion in invasive meningococcal disease. BMJ 336: 1453-1453 [Full text]  

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