Factors affecting time to death from start of treatment among children succumbing to bacterial meningitis.

Background: Many risks of death in childhood bacterial meningitis are well-identified, but factors influencing survival time have received less attention. Better understanding of this issue could help explain why adjuvant medications have performed unevenly in different trials.

Methods: In a post hoc analysis of prospectively collected data from a large bacterial meningitis treatment trial in Luanda, Angola, we compared time to death after initiation of antimicrobial treatment among 206 children with etiology and other patient characteristics.