Ventriculo-peritoneal shunt surgery for tuberculous meningitis: A systematic review.
BACKGROUND
Ventriculo-peritoneal shunt surgery is one of the most commonly performed surgery for the management of tuberculous hydrocephalus. There is decreased clarity on issues regarding the indication as well as timing of cerebrospinal fluid diversion procedures in tuberculous meningitis. We systematically analysed published literature on this subject with an objective to assess the value of cerebrospinal fluid diversion procedures in tuberculous meningitis.


METHODS
A systematic search of literature was performed using PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) for articles published till August 2016. All original studies, irrespective of their design, enrolling at least 10 patients with tuberculous meningitis and hydrocephalus, and in whom the outcome following ventriculo-peritoneal shunt was described, were included in this review. Data was extracted on a pre-formed data extraction sheet. Primary outcome was defined using Glasgow outcome scale (GOS).


RESULTS
Nineteen studies, comprising of 1038 patients, were included in the review. A majority of patients were children. Good outcome (GOS 5 and 4), following ventriculo-peritoneal shunt, was observed in 58.26% of patients; 78.57% of patients in grade I, 65.35% in grade II and 67.97% in grade III achieved a good outcome while only 31.51% in grade IV could achieve a good outcome. On subgroup analysis, 61.08% of HIV-negative patients achieved a good outcome as compared to only 25% of HIV-positive patients. There were 18.03% deaths in the HIV-negative group as compared to 66.67% deaths in the HIV-positive group after shunt surgery. The rate of complications following ventriculo-peritoneal shunt was 22.11%; shunt blockage, leading to shunt revision, was the most common complication. Majority of included studies were clinically and methodologically heterogeneous.


CONCLUSIONS
Outcome, following ventriculo-peritoneal shunt, depends on the clinical severity of tuberculous meningitis. HIV-infected patients have a worse prognosis when compared with HIV uninfected patients. Compared to children, corresponding data is sparse for adult patients with tuberculous meningitis.
Department of Neurology, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, India.
Imran
I
Rizvi
Department of Neurology, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, India. Electronic address: garg50@yahoo.com.
Ravindra Kumar
RK
Garg
Department of Neurology, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, India.
Hardeep Singh
HS
Malhotra
Department of Neurology, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, India.
Neeraj
N
Kumar
Department of Psychiatry, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, India.
Eesha
E
Sharma
Department of Neurosurgery, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, India.
Chhitij
C
Srivastava
Department of Neurology, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, India.
Ravi
R
Uniyal
D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D023261:Glasgow Outcome Scale; D006801:Humans; D014390:Tuberculosis, Meningeal / Q000601:surgery*; D017287:Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt / Q000379:methods*
Hydrocephalus; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Tuberculous meningitis; Ventriculo-peritoneal shunt