Table 1

Clinical and laboratory features in patients with and without tuberculous meningitis (TBM)

	TBM (n = 110)	Non-TBM (n = 94)	Odds ratio (95% CI)	p Value
Age (months)	42.4	39.0	—	0.56^*
Prodromal stage (days)	19.0	4.0	—	< 0.005^†
Weight for age (%)	66.2	73.4	—	< 0.005^*
Haemoglobin (g/l)	101	100	—	0.72^*
Leucocyte count (10⁹/l)	9.4	10.5		< 0.005^†
DLC (% polymorphs)	66.7	71.9	—	0.01^*
CSF cell count	137.0	660.0	—	< 0.005^†
CSF polymorphs (%)	25.0	90.0	—	< 0.005^†
CSF protein (g/l)	1	1	—	0.38^†
CSF sugar (g/l)	0.4	0.3	—	0.01^*
Religion Hindu	86	73	1.0 (0.5 to 2.1)	0.936
Fever grade
Low	55	9
Moderate	38	19		< 0.005
High	17	66
Vomiting	73	60	1.1 (0.6 to 2.1)	0.82
Convulsions	80	61	1.4 (0.8 to 2.7)	0.29
Focal convulsions	14	16	0.6 (0.2 to 1.4)	0.29
Convulsion frequency
Nil	30	33
1–3/day	32	22	—	0.70
3–6/day	27	22
> 6/day	21	17
History of measles	9	4	2.0 (0.5–8.1)	0.39
History of contact	46	8	7.7 (3.2–19.3)	< 0.005
Lymphadenopathy	46	14	4.1 (1.9–8.7)	< 0.005
Coma grade
Nil	27	25
I	58	41		0.58
II	19	22
III	6	6
Meningeal signs	95	82	0.9 (0.4 to 2.3)	0.98
Fundal optic atrophy	30	2	19.7 (4.4 to 123.6)	< 0.005
Focal deficits	48	10	6.5 (2.9 to 15.0)	< 0.005
Extrapyramidal movements	35	4	10.5 (3.3 to 36.9)	< 0.005
Decerebrate posturing	26	5	5.5 (1.9 to 17.4)	< 0.005
Increased tone	67	54	1.1 (0.6 to 2.1)	0.72
Ankle clonus	13	2	6.2 (1.3 to 41.3)	0.02
Cranial nerve palsies	25	3	8.9 (2.4 to 38.6)	< 0.005
Skin test positive	36/84	4/28	4.5 (1.3 to 17.0)	0.01
Suggestive chest radiograph	48/66	9/32	6.8 (2.4 to 19.8)	< 0.005

For continuous variables (1–10), analysis was either by two sample t test^* and mean values are shown, or by Kruksal-Wallis test^† and medians are shown (see methods). For non-continuous variables (11–30) data are numbers of patients with the finding. The χ² test was used.
CI, confidence interval; DLC, differential leucocyte count; CSF, cerebrospinal fluid.