Epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cerebrospinal fluid shunt infections.

Soon after cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunts became available in the late 1950s, infection was recognized as a serious complication of their use, although the bacterial cause of the infections and the way in which they arose was not clarified for a number of years. Subsequent research has since revealed their etiology and provided data that have improved the understanding of aspects of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.