[Infectious meningitis in the adult: 3-year clinical experience].

: In order to establish the epidemiologic features of infectious meningitis in the adult population in our environment, the experience of the Department of Neurology of the Hospital del Rey during the 3-year period, from 1984 to 1986, has been analyzed. Three-hundred-ninety episodes were handled, of which, 51% were acute bacterial meningitis, 45% were acute lymphocytic meningitis, 26% were tuberculous meningitis, 1% were brucellar meningitis and 0.5% were due to Candida albicans. Acute bacterial meningitis predominated in winter, whereas acute lymphocytic meningitis predominated in summer (p less than 0.001). Forty-seven percent of acute bacterial meningitis were due to Neisseria meningitidis and 14.5% of acute lymphocytic meningitis with virologic study, were due to Herpesviridae. The mortality rate of acute bacterial meningitis was 8.5% and that of tuberculous meningitis was 10%. In order to emphasize the importance of these processes, the main epidemiologic data are compared with that of other studies.