Intracranial abscesses in Odense Hospital. Survey of bacteriology, epidemiology, and treatment with antibiotics, 1963-1989.

Fifty-nine patients were operated or punctured in 60 incidents of brain abscess from 1963-1989, twice as many in men as in women. The number of cases tripled in 1980 to an incidence of 3.6 per million inhabitants per year, supposedly due to the advent of computerized tomography. Simultaneously, the aetiology changed from staphylococci and Gram negative rods to dominance of streptococci and Haemophilus aphrophilus. Apart from temporal abscesses, there was no correlation between localisation in the brain and the bacterial species isolated. Ninety-five per cent of the specimens from untreated patients gave growth, but so did specimens from six of 18 patients treated with relevant antibiotics up to 11 days before puncture. Therefore, we recommend removal of pus by excision or puncture.