title: Incidence of traumatic lumbar puncture: experience of a large, tertiary care pediatric hospital.
abstract: The objective of this study was to establish the incidence of traumatic or unsuccessful lumbar punctures (LPs) in the authors' institution. This is a prospective study. Traumatic LP was defined as >400 red blood cells (RBCs) and unsuccessful LP as failure to obtain cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) after the first LP attempt. A total of 127 CSF were recorded over 1 year. The incidence of a traumatic LP was 27/103 (26.2%) using the sitting position and 3/24 (12.5%) in infants and children using the lying position. In total, 33 (26%) CSF samples had 0 RBCs. The incidence of traumatic LP was 24% when the procedure involved one LP and 50% when more than one attempt was required. RBC count was significantly lower in cases requiring only one attempt (P = .0074). Incidence of traumatic LP was independent of physicians' experience, sedation use or time of procedure, suggesting an intrinsic factor as the cause of traumatic LPs.
authors.affiliation: Dana's Children Hospital, University of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. nopasara73@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Miguel M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Glatstein
authors.forename: Merav
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zucker-Toledano
authors.forename: Alper
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arik
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Scolnik
authors.forename: Asaf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Oren
authors.forename: Shimon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Reif
mesh_terms: D002555:Cerebrospinal Fluid / Q000166:cytology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004906:Erythrocyte Count; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D013129:Spinal Puncture / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data