A lumbar puncture is sometimes called a “spinal tap.” It’s a medical procedure that can involve collecting a sample of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). CSF is the fluid that surrounds your spinal cord and ...

Post-dural puncture headaches often develop within a few days of a lumbar puncture (spinal tap). They usually go away on their own within a week or two, but if they persist, a doctor might recommend ...

Lumbar puncture, a diagnostic procedure often undertaken in acute medical units, is a technical procedure that requires skill, knowledge and experience. Lumbar punctures used to be performed mostly by ...

In many if not most cases, neurologists can diagnose multiple sclerosis (MS) on the basis of symptoms, along with an MRI scan of the brain and spinal cord. But when results aren’t conclusive, they ...

Your brain and spinal cord are bathed in fluid. A lumbar puncture, also called a spinal tap, is a procedure doctors use to remove and test some of this liquid, called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). It ...

We prospectively studied 301 adults with suspected meningitis to determine whether clinical characteristics that were present before CT of the head was performed could be used to identify patients who ...

Lumbar puncture is the only test that can directly confirm a diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. Most people with suspected bacterial meningitis do not need neuroimaging before a lumbar puncture. This ...

Abo and colleagues note that although descriptive evidence exists for the best position for adult lumbar puncture (LP), no comparative evidence exists for children. This study was completed on a ...

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on . Roughly 30% of hospital admissions for encephalitis required repeat lumbar punctures. Diagnostic uncertainty is ...

In the present review, we describe the known association of lumbar puncture, intracranial hypotension and subdural formation; and we determine how often subdurals in HCT patients are associated with ...

Despite the mortality and long-term sequelae occurring secondary to neonatal meningitis, past studies have shown that lumbar punctures (LPs) are not done in neonates as often as they should be. This ...

Why do I need a lumbar puncture? A lumbar puncture can check for cancer cells or for infection in the CSF. Doctors remove some of the CSF to test for cancer cells. They use a needle to take a sample ...