Neonatal bacterial meningitis (BM) is a devastating infection that occurs more commonly in neonates than in any other age group, and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, especially in developing countries. In this study, we aimed to develop a clinical risk score model, according to the available clinical syndromes and commonly laboratory tests, for screening BM among full-term neonates in a large-scale retrospective cohort, and prospectively validated the risk score in multicenter cohort.

In this study, we aimed to develop a clinical risk score model, according to the available clinical syndromes and commonly laboratory tests, for screening BM among full-term neonates in a large-scale retrospective cohort, and prospectively validated the risk score in multicenter cohort.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Subject has a positive cerebrospinal fluid culture of bacterial pathogen(s)
• Subject has a positive blood culture of bacterial pathogen and counts of white blood cells in cerebrospinal fluid ≥ 20×106/L
• Subject has counts of white blood cells in cerebrospinal fluid ≥ 20×106/L and counts of neutrophils ≥ 10×106/L as well as suspected clinical symptoms

Exclusion Criteria:

• History of brain trauma, brain tumor, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and ventricular shunt device
• History of accepting neurosurgery
• Subject has missing data

Eligible participants were full-term neonates, aged older than 3 days, who were suspected with BM and received LPs.

we plan to share all the individual participant data information available to our cooperative hospitals through emails