Developing a prognostic model to predict mortality in patients with acute bacterial meningitis

Bacterial meningitis is one of the harmful and deadly infectious diseases, and any delay in its treatment will lead to death. In this paper, a prognostic model was developed to predict the risk of death amongst probable cases of bacterial meningitis. Our prognostic model was developed using a decision tree algorithm on the national meningitis registry of the Iranian Center for Disease and Prevention (ICDCP) containing 3,923 records of meningitis suspected cases in 2018-2019. The most important features have been selected for the model construction. This model can predict the mortality risk for the meningitis probable cases with 78% accuracy, 84% sensitivity, and 73% specificity. The identified variables in prognosis the death included age and CSF protein level. CSF protein level (mg/dl) >= 65 versus > 65 provided the first branch of our decision tree. The highest mortality risk (85.8%) was seen in the patients >65 CSF protein level with 30 years < of age. For the patients <=30 year of age with CSF protein level >137 (mg/dl), the mortality risk was 60%. The prognostic factors identified in the present study draw the attention of clinicians to provide early specific measures, such as the admission of patients with a higher risk of death to intensive care units (ICU). It could also provide a helpful risk score tool in decision-making in the early phases of admission in pandemics, decrease mortality rate and improve public health operations efficiently in infectious diseases.