Brain abscess disease and treatment

Brain abscess is a localized accumulation of pus in the brain.

Brain abscess is rare and could be a result of:

• The spread of infection in other parts of the head (eg teeth, nose or ears)
• Head injuries that penetrate into the brain
• Infection in other parts of the body, which spread through the blood.

Brain abscess can cause various symptoms, depending on the location.
Symptoms can include headache, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, seizures, personality changes and symptoms of brain dysfunction.

These symptoms can occur within a few days or several weeks.

Initially patients feel the fever and chills, but these symptoms could disappear when the body successfully ward off the infection.
The best examination to find the brain abscess is a CT scan or MRI.

Biopsy performed to rule out the possibility of a tumor or stroke and to determine the organism causing the abscess.

Treatment
Treatment for a brain abscess is an antibiotic; the most commonly used are penicillin, metronidazole, nafsilin and sefalosporin (eg seftizoksim).
Antibiotics are usually continued until 4-6 weeks and a CT scan and MRI repeated every 2 weeks.

If antibiotics are not able to overcome this situation, then surgery to remove the pus.

Sometimes abscesses caused increased pressure and swelling in the brain.
This situation is very serious and can cause permanent brain damage, which was given corticosteroids and other drugs (eg mannitol) to reduce brain swelling and reduce the pressure in the brain.