Validation of Thwaites Index for diagnosing tuberculous meningitis in a Colombian population.

Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of Thwaites Index (TI) in a Colombian population to distinguish meningeal tuberculosis (MTB) from bacterial meningitis (BM) and from non-tuberculous meningitis. Exploratory analyses were conducted to assess the TI's validity for patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and children above six-years-old.

Methods: The study included 527 patients, the TI was calculated and results compared with those of a reference standard established by expert neurologists.